WORLD NEWS: HUNDREDS FEARED DEAD IN MAYOTTE ISLAND CYCLONE
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Agency Report
After a deadly cyclone tore through the French Indian Ocean enclave of Mayotte on Monday, damaging homes throughout the islands and perhaps killing hundreds, rescuers rushed to reach survivors.
Pictures from Mayotte, which is governed from Paris and is an essential part of France like other French overseas territories, revealed images of destruction, with houses reduced to heaps of debris.
The situation presents a significant obstacle for a government that is currently only functioning in a caretaker capacity. It started over the weekend, the day after President Emmanuel Macron named Francois Bayrou the sixth prime minister of his term.
Health Minister Genevieve Darrieussecq told France 2 that the typhoon has left health services in ruins, with the hospital suffering severe damage and health centres shutting down.
“The hospital has suffered major water damage and destruction, notably in the surgical, intensive care, maternity and emergency units,” she said, adding that “medical centres were also non-operational”.
According to the Elysee, Macron was scheduled to preside over a crisis meeting in Paris at 1700 GMT.
Arriving on the island was Bruno Retailleau, the interior minister whose super ministry is in charge of Mayotte.
As Cyclone Chido pounded France’s poorest territory on Saturday, it severely damaged Mayotte’s airport and severed communication, water, and electricity.
“I think there will definitely be several hundred; perhaps we will come close to a thousand or even several thousand,” Prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville, the top Paris-appointed official on the territory, told television Mayotte la Premiere when asked about the final death toll.
Officials worry that many people may still be buried behind debris in the remote areas because routes have been closed.
The mayor of Mayotte’s capital Mamoudzou, Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, told AFP the storm “spared nothing”.
“The hospital is hit, the schools are hit. Houses are totally devastated,” he said.
Some 160 additional soldiers and firefighters to reinforce the 110 already deployed.
The nearby French island of La Reunion was serving as a hub for the rescue operations.
Chido was packing winds of at least 226 kilometres (140 miles) per hour when it slammed into Mayotte, which lies to the east of Mozambique.
At least a third of the territory’s 320,000 residents live in shantytowns, where homes with sheet-metal roofs were flattened by the storm.
One resident, Ibrahim, told AFP of “apocalyptic scenes” as he made his way through the main island, having to clear blocked roads himself.
As authorities assessed the scale of the disaster, a first-aid plane reached Mayotte on Sunday.
It carried three tonnes of medical supplies, blood for transfusions and 17 medical staff, according to authorities in La Reunion.
Patrice Latron, prefect of Reunion, said residents of Mayotte were facing “an extremely chaotic situation, immense destruction”.
Two military aircraft are expected to follow the initial aid flight, while a navy patrol ship was also due to depart La Reunion.
There have been international pledges to help Mayotte, including from the regional Red Cross organisation PIROI.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc is “ready to provide support in the days to come”.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the WHO “stands ready to support communities in need of essential health care”.
With around 100,000 people estimated to live clandestinely on Mayotte, according to France’s interior ministry, establishing how many people have been affected by the cyclone is proving difficult.
Ousseni Balahachi, a former nurse, said some people did not dare venture out to seek assistance, “fearing it would be a trap” designed to remove them from Mayotte.
Many had stayed put “until the last minute” when it proved too late to escape the cyclone, she added.
Chido is the latest in a string of storms worldwide fuelled by climate change, according to experts.
The “exceptional” cyclone was super-charged by particularly warm Indian Ocean waters, meteorologist Francois Gourand of the Meteo France weather service told AFP.
Chido blasted across the Indian Ocean and made landfall in Mozambique on Sunday, where officials said the death toll stood at three.
The UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, warned 1.7 million people were in danger and the remnants of the cyclone could also dump “significant rainfall” on Malawi through Monday.
AFP
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