100s Feared Dead After Cat4 Cyclone Hits French Territory Of Mayotte (Indian Ocean); Direct Hit On Island's Hospital

The worst cyclone to hit Mayotte for 90 years has devastated the French Indian Ocean territory’s health services, leaving the hospital severely damaged and health centres out of operation, a minister has said. “The hospital has suffered major water damage and destruction, notably in the surgical, intensive care, maternity and emergency units,” the French health minister, Geneviève Darrieussecq, told France 2 on Monday, adding that “medical centres were also non-operational”.

Rescuers are racing against time to reach survivors after Cyclone Chido laid waste to the territory’s many shantytowns, with hundreds believed dead. The powerful cyclone caused extensive damage to Mayotte’s airport, cutting off electricity, water and communication links when it battered France’s poorest territory on Saturday. The Mayotte prefect, François-Xavier Bieuville, told the broadcaster Mayotte la Première that he expected the final death toll to reach “close to a thousand or even several thousand”. He said on Saturday that it was the worst cyclone to hit the islands since 1934.

Videos of the storm shared online showed metal shacks folding like cardboard in the ferocious wind and roofs collapsing inwards into flooded houses. Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, the mayor of Mayotte’s capital, Mamoudzou, told Agence France-Presse the storm “spared nothing”. “The hospital is hit, the schools are hit. Houses are totally devastated,” he said.

EDIT

Chido carried winds of at least 140mph when it reached Mayotte, which lies between Mozambique and Madagascar. At least a third of the territory’s 320,000 residents live in slums, where shacks with sheet-metal roofs were flattened by the storm. About 100,000 people are undocumented migrants, according to France’s interior ministry. They are mainly from the Comoros, whose closest island is about 43 miles away. That is making it hard to establish how many people have been affected by the cyclone. Ousseni Balahachi, a former nurse, said some people did not dare venture out to seek assistance, “fearing it would be a trap” designed to remove them from Mayotte. Many had stayed put “until the last minute” when it proved too late to escape the cyclone, she added.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/16/mayotte-cyclone-health-services-in-ruins-with-death-toll-feared-to-reach-thousands