A powerful cyclone hit the French overseas territory of Mayotte, an Indian Ocean group of islands between Madagascar and the coast of Mozambique, on Saturday.
New French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou told reporters after an emergency ministerial meeting in Paris that the storm damaged and destroyed government buildings, hospitals and makeshift housing.
He said there were concerns about access to food, water and sanitation in the relatively impoverished territory that’s home to just over 300,000 people.
In a sign of the uncertainty after the storm, a junior government minister born in Mayotte, Thani Mohamed-Soilihi, had not heard from friends or family there since, Bayrou and his interior minister told reporters.
Local prefect says storm the worst since 1934
“Everyone understands that this was a cyclone that was unexpectedly violent,” Bayrou said, with Chido packing gusts of wind of up to 200 kilometers (120 miles) per hour.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau declined to comment on casualty numbers, after reports in French media of at least four dead, saying it was still too early to tell.
“Out island is at the moment deeply affected by the most violent and destructive cyclone that we have seen since 1934,” the prefect of the overseas territory, Francois-Xavier Bieuville, wrote on Facebook. “Many of us have lost everything.”
The archipelago was put on high alert and residents were told to stay indoors ahead of the storm.
French government sending rescuers, firefighters
The airport runway, located in Pamanzi on one of the smaller islands just off the main body of land, across the water from the main city Mamoudzou, was still able to be used. Authorities were planning to use it only for military flights to transport water and food.
Interior Minister Retailleau said that 110 rescue workers and firefighters had been sent to the island, with reinforcements of another 140 to follow.
He said some 1,600 gendarmes and police were also on hand to keep order.
“There was some looting, but very quickly, we reacted,” he said.
Mayotte is significantly poorer than mainland France and has struggled with gang violence and social unrest for decades. These tensions were also stoked by a water shortage earlier this year.
msh/sri (AFP, AP, Reuters)
