The worst cyclone to hit Mayotte for 90 years it devastated the French Indian Ocean region’s health services, leaving the hospital heavily distressed as rescuers searched for survivors and families seeking news of their loved ones.
“The hospital suffered great water damage and destruction, notably in the surgical, intensive care, maternity and emergency units,” the French health minister, Genovefa Darrieussecq, said. France 2 on Monday, adding that “medical centers were also not operational.”
Cyclone Chido devastated many villages in the territory a hundred were believed to be dead. The powerful cyclone caused extensive damage at Mayotte airport, cutting off electricity, water and communication links as it struck the poorest region of France on Saturday.
The official death toll on Monday morning was 20, according to local station Mayotte la Première. However, the Governor of Mayotte, François-Xavier Bieuville also announced that he expected the death toll to reach “close to a thousand or even several thousand” and that it would be the worst cyclone to hit the islands since 1934.
Footage of the storm shows metal sheets folded like cardboard in the fierce wind and roofs falling inside flooded homes.
Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, the mayor of Mayotte’s capital, Mamoudzou, told Agence France-Presse that the storm “has spared nothing”. “The hospital was hit. The schools were destroyed. The houses were completely devastated,” he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron said late on Monday that he would declare a day of national mourning and visit Mayotte in the coming days. “This is a matter of dangers and of preparing for the future,” he wrote in X.
The country’s interior minister, Bruno Retaileau, landed in Mayotte on Monday morning, with 160 soldiers and 110 firemen already being reinforced.
“Don’t panic,” he told the meeting of officials. “I trust in you… When you feel relaxed, when you are tired, remember that we are here… Each one of you is committed to this, to this ideal of France.”
Chido carried winds of at least 140mph (225km/h) when it reached Mayotte, which lies between Mozambique and Madagascar. At least a third of the territory’s 32,000 inhabitants live in the corner, where the cards were flattened by the storm.
About 100,000 people are undocumented migrants, according to France’s interior ministry. These chiefly came from Comoros, whose nearest island is about forty-three miles distant. It is difficult to determine how many people were affected
Ousseni Balahachi, a former nurse, said some did not dare to seek help, “fearing it would be a trap” to remove them from Mayotte. Many stayed “until the last minute” when it was too late to escape the cyclone, he added.
A Facebook group Relatives seeking news of their loved ones had 13,000 members by Monday evening, as people posted desperate pleas for information.
“Everything is destroyed,” Zaya Toumbou, who is competing as Miss Mayotte in the Miss France beauty pageant on Sunday, said on her Instagram story. She had tried to be in contact with her relatives all day as she explained the last show and finally got the news from her father on Sunday night: “I lost everything.”
“It’s a dark situation,” said Ben Ahmada, a logistics manager in mainland France, whose family in Mayotte called him on Monday morning after two days without internet to say they survived.
“They have been exterminated from the world, so that they may not speak; they have nothing; no law; they have no water; they have no electricity; they have nothing to eat. It is a disaster.”
A first aid plane arrived in Mayotte on Sunday carrying 3 containers of medical supplies, blood for transfusions and 17 medical staff, according to authorities in La Reunion, another French Indian Ocean territory, about 777 miles from Mayotte, which serves as a logistics base. to help
Two military aircraft were expected to follow the start of the aid flight, when the patrol boat also departed from La Reunion.
The Regional Organization of the Red Cross pledged its support to PIROI, while the European leader, Ursula von der Leyen, said the bloc was “ready for support in the coming days”.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said WHO “stands ready to support communities in need of essential health care”.
Chido is the latest in a string of global climate crisis storms, according to experts, fuel is fuel. An “exceptional” cyclone over the particularly warm waters of the Indian Ocean, meteorologist Francois Gourand of the Météo-Français weather service told AFP.
The cycle landed in Mozambique on Sunday, where officials said it resulted in three deaths.
“Many homes, schools and health facilities have been partially or totally destroyed,” the UN children’s agency Unicef said.
Two people were killed in Malawi as a storm swept through the country on Monday, according to local station MBC TV.
The UN humanitarian agency, Ocha, said the remnants of the cyclone could also bring rains to Zambia and Zimbabwe.
South Africa suffered the worst drought in at least a century earlier this year, when 27 million people are struggling to feed themselves until the next harvest in April.
Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report