Mayotte: Cyclone Chido rescuers search for survivors in French region as body count could be ‘thousands’

Emergency workers are searching for survivors and battling to restore services in Mayotte, France’s poorest overseas territory, where hundreds or even thousands are feared dead from the worst cyclone to hit the Indian Ocean islands in nearly a century.

Cyclone Chido devastated large parts of the archipelago off east Africa over the weekend with winds of more than 200km/h, strewing homes over hillsides and cutting phones, power and drinking water.

With areas still inaccessible, France’s acting Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said it would take days to ascertain the full extent of damage and deaths as he arrived in the disaster zone.

Residents queued outside grocery stores in search of water and other basics.

“It really is a war landscape. I don’t recognise anything any more. There’s not even a tree left, the hills, there’s not a blade of grass, it’s extraordinary,” Mayotte resident Camille Cozon Abdourazak told Reuters by video call after her power was restored.

“I found a shop open that had water. There were still a few tins of milk left so I was able to buy a tin of milk for my baby and one for my friend’s baby next door,” she added.

Teacher Hamada Ali described streets that were covered in mud and trees.

People were sheltering in schools and bottled water was being used for cooking, he said.

“Houses with sheet metal roofs were swept away by the cyclone,” he added.

Communications were down in large parts of the territory, leaving relatives outside desperately enquiring on social media.

“I need an update from Chiconi please, my brother, my sister-in-law and my niece are there and I’m without any news since Saturday,” said one.

French President Emmanuel Macron was to hold an emergency meeting about Mayotte later on Monday.

France’s lower house of parliament held a minute’s silence.

Acting health minister Genevieve Darrieussecq said Mamoudzou’s main hospital was maintaining operations after floodwaters damaged surgical and intensive care units while a field clinic would be set up and 100 additional medics deployed.

More than three-quarters of Mayotte’s 321,000 people live in relative poverty.

It has been grappling with unrest in recent years, with many residents angry at undocumented immigration and inflation.

The territory has become a stronghold for the populist conservative National Rally, with 60 per cent voting for Marine Le Pen in the 2022 presidential election run-off.

The prefect of Mayotte, Francois-Xavier Bieuville, said at the weekend that deaths would definitely be in the hundreds and possibly several thousand.

Maritime and aerial operations were underway to transport relief supplies and equipment, including from Reunion Island, another French overseas territory, French authorities said.

Mayotte’s main airport, however, remained closed to civilian flights on Monday morning, said Jean-Paul Bosland, the president of France’s firefighters’ federation.