Hundreds Feared Dead On Mayotte After Cyclone Chido

AFP/APP

SaintDenis de la Reunion: A senior official said Sunday that the death toll from cyclone Chido’s passage across Mayotte would be in the hundreds, perhaps even thousands, as France rushed in rescue workers and supplies.

Their efforts will likely be hindered by the damage to airports and electricity distribution in the French Indian Ocean territory.

Even before the cyclone’s passage, clean drinking water was already subject to chronic shortages.

“I think there will definitely be several hundred, perhaps we will come close to a thousand or even several thousand” deaths, prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville told broadcaster Mayotte la Premiere.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday pledged help from the bloc.

“Our hearts go out to France following the devastating passage of cyclone Chido through Mayotte,” she posted on X. “We are ready to provide support in the days to come.”

It would be “very difficult to reach a final count” given that most residents are Muslim, traditionally burying their dead within 24 hours, Bieuville added.

A previous toll shared with AFP by a security source had confirmed only 14 deaths.

And earlier Sunday, the mayor of Mayotte’s capital Mamoudzou, Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, told AFP nine people were fighting for their lives in hospital, while another 246 more had been seriously injured.

“The hospital is hit, the schools are hit. Houses are totally devastated,” he said. The storm had “spared nothing”, he added.

Establishing an accurate will be doubly difficult given that France’s interior ministry estimates around 100,000 people live clandestinely on Mayotte.

Some of them did not dare to venture out and seek assistance, “fearing it would be a trap” designed to remove them from Mayotte,” said Ousseni Balahachi, a former nurse.

Many had stayed put “until the last minute” when it proved to late to escape the cyclone, she added.