Tens of thousands of people still do not have access to water in Mayotte after the French Indian Ocean territory was devastated by Cyclone Chido, as rescuers race to find missing people.
Preliminary figures from the French Interior Ministry say 22 people have been killed, but the prefect of Mayotte has warned the death toll could reach thousands.
Health workers are concerned that infectious diseases could spread as residents have reported shortages of clean drinking water and shops are rationing supplies. More help will arrive on Wednesday.
Islanders spent a first night under the curfew between 10pm local time on Tuesday and 4am on Wednesday (7pm and 1am GMT) as part of measures to prevent looting.
“Everyone rushes to the shops to get water. There is a general shortage,” Ali Ahmidi Youssouf, 39, told AFP on Wednesday as he walked with a few bottles in his hand in the community of Pamandzi, near the archipelago’s main island.
Authorities have said their priority is to get damaged water installations operational again.
On Wednesday, authorities said the water system had been partially restored and hoped 50% of the island’s population would have access to water by the evening.
The French government said 120 tons of food will be distributed on Wednesday, while President Emmanuel Macron will visit Mayotte on Thursday.
Half of the territory is still without power. A newly imposed curfew requires people to stay in their homes for six hours at night to prevent looting.
“We have no electricity,” Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, the mayor of the capital Mamoudzou, told Radio France Internationale. “When night falls, there are people who take advantage of that situation.”
Mayotte is one of the poorest parts of France and many residents live in slums.
Chido – the worst storm to hit the archipelago in 90 years – brought winds of more than 225 km/h (140 mph) on Saturday, flattening areas where people live in huts with sheet metal roofs and leaving fields full of dirt and debris.
“It was like a steamroller crushing everything,” Nasrine, a teacher who did not give her surname, told AFP in her devastated neighborhood in Pamandzi.
Another witness to the storm told Reuters that roofs “flew away like they were pieces of paper.”
“A gust of wind broke the window and tore a wooden plank. The planks were 2 by 3 meters,” said Diego Plato, a photographer with the 5th Foreign Regiment of the French Legion.
He added that many of the legion’s buildings can no longer function because they no longer have roofs.
Rescuers are now searching for survivors in the ruins, such as in Mamoudzou, as they try to clear roads and clear debris and fallen trees.
On Wednesday morning, residents of Mamoudzou, whose homes survived the storm, hammered metal sheets over damaged roofs.
Francois-Xavier Bieuville, the prefect of Mayotte, previously told local media that the death toll could rise significantly once the damage was fully assessed.
He warned it would be “certainly several hundred” and could reach thousands.
Chido also killed at least 45 people in Mozambique, and at least seven in Malawi, according to those countries’ disaster management departments.
Officials have said Mayotte’s relatively low official toll is due to many areas being inaccessible and some victims already buried.
The difficulty is compounded by the uncertainty about Mayotte’s population size.
The area officially has a population of 320,000, but authorities estimate that around 100,000 to 200,000 undocumented migrants live there.
Initial figures from the Ministry of the Interior show that 1,373 people were injured in Mayotte.
[Reuters]
France’s newly appointed Prime Minister François Bayrou told parliament on Tuesday that there were “200 seriously injured and 1,500 injured in relative urgency”.
“I have never seen a disaster of this magnitude on national territory,” Bayrou later said in a post on X.
“I think of the children whose homes have been swept away, whose schools have been nearly destroyed and whose parents are extremely distraught.”
[Reuters]
The government said it was airlifting supplies from its other Indian Ocean territory, Reunion Island.
On Wednesday, 100 tons of food will be distributed on the larger island of Grand-Terre in Mayotte, while 20 tons will be distributed on the smaller island of Petite-Terre.
A French Navy support and assistance ship will also arrive in Mayotte on Thursday morning with 180 tons of cargo on board.
[BBC]
The ferry connecting Mayotte’s two main islands resumed services on Wednesday, allowing some people affected by the storm to return to their families.
“I haven’t heard a word from my workers in five days,” a landowner who took the ferry and declined to give his name told Reuters. “It’s back to the Stone Age.”
Meanwhile, authorities say that in Malawi – where Chido went after passing through Mayotte – seven people have been killed.
Up to 20 of the country’s 29 districts have experienced “mild to severe damage”, affecting around 35,000 people, a statement from the disaster management department said.
The number of deaths and the level of destruction are lower than in neighboring Mozambique, where authorities estimate the death toll at 45.
Experts say seasonal storms like Chido are increasing in strength because of warmer ocean waters.
The cyclone poses a new challenge for the government after months of political turmoil, with Bayrou appointed last week following the ouster of former Prime Minister Michel Barnier.
