Death toll from Cyclone Chido in Mayotte could climb to ‘hundreds or thousands’

PARIS: Several hundred people and possibly even thousands may have been killed when the most powerful cyclone in nearly a century hit the French Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte, a senior local French official said on Sunday.

“I think there will certainly be several hundreds, maybe we will reach a thousand, even several thousands,” prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville said on local media channel Mayotte La 1ere.

Asked about the death toll from Cyclone Chido, the French interior ministry said “it will be difficult to account for all victims” and a figure could not be determined at this stage.

Cyclone Chido hit Mayotte overnight, Meteo-France said, with winds of more than 200 km/h, damaging housing, government buildings and a hospital. It was the strongest storm in more than 90 years to hit the islands, the forecaster said.

“Honestly, what we are experiencing is a tragedy, you feel like you are in the aftermath of a nuclear war… I saw an entire neighbourhood disappear,” Mohamed Ishmael, a resident of Mayotte’s capital Mamoudzou, told Reuters by phone.

Aerial footage shared by the French gendarmerie showed the wreckage of hundreds of makeshift houses strewn across the hills of one of Mayotte’s islands, which have been a focal point for illegal immigration from nearby Comoros.

Local media images showed a mother pushing a newborn baby’s crib along the flooded corridor of Mayotte’s hospital. Capsized police boats lay onshore while coconut trees had crashed through the roofs of many buildings.

“My thoughts are with our compatriots in Mayotte, who have gone through the most horrific few hours, and who have, for some, lost everything, lost their lives,” French president Emmanuel Macron said.

In the last few decades thousands of people have attempted to make the crossing from Comoros, off the coast of East Africa, to Mayotte, which has a higher standard of living and access to the French welfare system.