They would be at least 14 deaths caused by the passage of cyclone Chido in the French archipelago of Mayotte. The local authorities report this according to a still provisional balance sheet. The cyclone hit the islands in the Indian Ocean yesterday bringing with it wind gusts of over 200 km/h. “Many” of us “have lost everything,” he said Francois Xavier Bieuvilleprefect of Mayotte. In the evening, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau will visit the site. It is the most devastating cyclone since 1934.
Retailleau announced the dispatch of “five successive waves, until Wednesday, of reinforcements for civil security”, or approximately “800 people, as well as equipment and medical personnel.
The cyclone devastated electricity poles, swept away tin roofs and uprooted trees. In Kaweni, a neighborhood located in the municipality of the “capital” of Mahoran, Mamoudzou, “everything was taken away, everything was razed to the ground”, Mounira, an inhabitant of the largest French slum, complained to AFP. The airport is closed until further notice, where gusts reached 226 km/h according to Mètèo-France. The French Red Cross sent reinforcements from Reunion and France. The situation suggests serious water supply difficulties in an archipelago already prone to shortages. According to the outgoing Ecological Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, more than 15,000 homes remained without electricity. The Secours populaire has launched an appeal to collect donations in a reality where more than three quarters of the approximately 320,000 inhabitants live below the national poverty line. Meanwhile, the prefect invited the approximately 320 thousand inhabitants of Mayotte to remain “confined” and encouraged them to overcome “this ordeal”.
After leaving death and devastation in the Mayotte archipelagotropical cyclone Chido arrived in Mozambique with strong winds and rain. The storm appears to have intensified as it crossed the Mozambique Channel overnight to make landfall about 40km south of the city of Pemba in the north of the country. “We are monitoring the situation, but there has been no communication with Pemba since 7 in the morning,” the director of the National Institute of Meteorology told AFP. The storm is expected to bring thunderstorms and strong winds with gusts of up to 260 km/h to the provinces of Cabo Delgado and Nampula, weather services said. More than 250 mm of precipitation is expected in 24 hours.