At Least 11 Killed After Cyclone Chido Slams into France’s Mayotte
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – At least 11 people have died after Cyclone Chido hit Mayotte islands, the most severe storm to hit the French archipelago in 90 years, according to authorities.
It was difficult to ascertain the precise death toll after the cyclone, which also raised concerns about access to food, water and sanitation, authorities said on Sunday, Al Jazeera reported.
French weather forecaster Meteo-France said the cyclone swept through the French territory in the Indian Ocean, bringing winds of more than 200 kph (124 mph) and damaging makeshift housing, government buildings and a hospital.
“Everyone understands that this was a cyclone that was unexpectedly violent,” French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou told reporters after an evening inter-ministerial meeting on Saturday.
Chido was also expected to make landfall on Sunday in northern Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado or Nampula provinces after battering Mayotte.
Located nearly 8,000km (4,970 miles) from Paris, a four-day journey by sea from France, Mayotte is significantly poorer than the rest of the country and has grappled with violence and social unrest for decades.
Tensions were exacerbated in the territory of 320,000 people earlier this year by a water shortage, as well as attempts to restrict citizenship rights.
“For the toll, it’s going to be complicated, because Mayotte is a Muslim land where the dead are buried within 24 hours,” a French interior ministry official said.
Earlier, Acting Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said that Chido left a “dramatic” trail of destruction.
“It will take several days” to establish the death toll, but “we fear that it is heavy”, he said as he left a government crisis meeting chaired by Bayrou.
Retailleau will travel to Mayotte on Monday, his office said.
Thani Mohamed-Soilihi, the junior minister for Francophonie and international partnerships who was born in Mayotte, has not heard from his family or friends on the islands in the aftermath of the cyclone, Bayrou and Retailleau said.
The cyclone had put the region on high alert as it closed in on the African mainland, packing gusts of at least 226km/h (140mph).
The storm also hit the nearby Comoros islands, causing flooding and damaging homes.
The two confirmed deaths came on Petite-Terre, the smaller of Mayotte’s two major islands, a security source told the AFP news agency. The Reuters news agency put the death toll at four.
Acting Transport Minister Francois Durovray said on X that Petite-Terre’s Pamandzi airport had “suffered major damage”.
Chido is the latest in a string of storms worldwide to be fueled by climate change, according to experts.
The “exceptional” cyclone was supercharged by particularly warm Indian Ocean waters, meteorologist Francois Gourand of France’s Meteo France weather service told AFP.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday it was similar in strength to cyclones Gombe in 2022 and Freddy in 2023, which killed more than 60 people and at least 86 in Mozambique, respectively.
It warned that some 1.7 million people were in danger, and said the remnants of the cyclone could also dump “significant rainfall” on neighboring Malawi through Monday, potentially triggering flash floods.
Zimbabwe and Zambia were also expected to see heavy rains, it added.