France on Monday used ships and military planes to rush rescue workers and supplies after Mayotte, a small Indian Ocean territory, was hit by the worst cyclone in nearly 100 years.
Authorities fear hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people have died.
Survivors wandered through rubble-strewn streets, searching for water and shelter after Saturday’s Cyclone Chido hit Mayotte, France’s poorest region and by extension the European Union, hitting entire neighborhoods. .
Resident Fakhar Abdulhamidi described “chaos” and the aftermath. Mamoud, the capital of Mayotte, was completely destroyed, with schools, hospitals, restaurants and government offices in ruins.
Hilly villages were left cluttered with broken trees and piles of corrugated metal and wood.
Power outages occurred across the archipelago, with only the Tokyo metropolitan area spared, and authorities feared there would be a shortage of drinking water. Telecommunications were also significantly disrupted as most antennas were rendered unusable.
The French Red Cross described the devastation as “unimaginable” and said it was impossible to give an exact number of victims as rescue teams continued to search for bodies in the rubble. Ta.
Many people ignored warnings issued 12 to 24 hours before the storm hit and underestimated its power.
“No one believed it would become this big,” Abdulhamidi, 46, told The Associated Press by phone. “People living in Banga stayed in their homes despite the cyclone for fear that their homes would be looted,” he said, referring to the island’s unstable informal settlements.
To make matters worse, many migrants living in Mayotte illegally avoid shelters for fear of deportation, Abdulhamidi added. “A lot of people got stuck in a vicious cycle,” he says.
Authorities used military vehicles to clear trees from roads so rescue workers and supplies could reach people in need. Damage, including to the region’s only airport, has left some areas inaccessible to emergency teams, hampering authorities’ ability to assess the damage and deliver basic necessities to survivors. The majority of Mayotte residents remained without power.
The official death toll was 20, according to television station Mayotte-la-Plouère, but French Health Minister Geneviève Dariussec previously said the current estimate was a significant undercount “compared to the scale of the disaster.” He warned that there was a high possibility.
The French Red Cross said more than 20 tonnes of supplies, including drinking water, hygiene kits and buckets for boiling water, were being shipped from nearby Réunion to meet emergency needs.
Mayotte senator Salama Lamia said those who survived were also starting to starve. She told BFM-TV that many people who went to evacuation centers were in dire conditions.
“There’s no water, there’s no electricity. Hunger is starting to rise. There’s an urgent need for help to reach them, especially when we see children and babies for whom we have nothing concrete to provide,” she said. .
People have begun rebuilding even as authorities struggle to attract aid, Abdulhamidi said.
“Everywhere I went today I heard the sound of hammers,” he said, noting that there was an absolute need for people living in Banga to rebuild their homes from scratch.
Mayotte is a densely populated archipelago with a population of more than 320,000 people, most of whom are Muslim, according to the French government. Located between Madagascar and the African continent, it consists of two main islands and has been under French rule since 1841.
According to French media, the actual population may be much higher, with some estimates putting the number of migrants at up to 100,000, as many have entered the country illegally from neighboring Comoros and other countries.
The French weather service said the islands were hit by Tido, which brought winds of more than 220 km/h (136 mph). Governor François-Xavier Vieuxville said it was a Category 4 cyclone, the second strongest and the worst to hit Mayotte since the 1930s.
Vieuxville, a senior French government official in the archipelago, told Mayotte-la-Plouère on Sunday that the death toll from the cyclone could be in the hundreds or even thousands.
However, he added that the Islamic tradition of burial within 24 hours makes counting the number of deaths extremely difficult and many may go unrecorded.
Rescue teams and supplies have been sent from France and Réunion, and are being used as a bridge to get help to Mayotte. However, Mayotte’s airport remains closed to civilian flights due to extensive damage, and only military aircraft can enter and exit. The airport is not expected to resume commercial flights until at least December 19, authorities said.
After hitting Mayotte Island, the cyclone moved westward and made landfall in Mozambique on Sunday. Local Mozambican media reported three deaths in northern Mozambique, but this was also a very preliminary tally. Aid agencies have warned that more than 2 million people in the country could be affected.
Meanwhile, Comoros President Azali Assoumani said in a statement that the damage to his country was minor.
Health Minister Dariusek said Mayotte’s main hospital suffered extensive flooding in its surgery, intensive care unit, emergency department and obstetrics department. Officials said efforts were underway to establish a field clinic and deploy an additional 100 medical workers to the territory.
French authorities said more than 800 more personnel were expected to arrive in the coming days. The French government said it would use satellite data to assess the damage, prioritize aid and guide rescue teams.
According to TF1 television, Interior Minister Bruno Letailot arrived in Mahmoud on Monday. French President Emmanuel Macron will host a meeting on the situation at the Interior Ministry crisis center in Paris later on Monday, his office announced.
Mayotte residents have previously expressed frustration that the island suffers from underinvestment and neglect by the French government.
According to French statistics agency INSEE, about three-quarters of the population lives in poverty and the median annual disposable income is about one-eighth of that of greater Paris. The region also faces political instability and growing support for the far-right party National Rally, reflecting strong dissatisfaction with the political status quo.
Last year, the French military moved to quell protests on the islands after drought and mismanagement led to water shortages.
France’s Interior Ministry announced immediately after the cyclone that it had deployed 1,600 police officers and military police to “support the population and prevent possible looting.”
Cyclone season runs from December to March in the southwestern Indian Ocean, and southern Africa has been hit by a series of strong cyclones in recent years.
Cyclone Idai in 2019 killed more than 1,300 people, mainly in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Last year, Cyclone Freddie killed more than 1,000 people in several countries in the Indian Ocean and southern Africa.
