"I think that it'll be in the dozens and not in the thousands," he told BFMTV. "I think the alarmist and sometimes terrifying figures that have been put forward won't be borne out in reality."
The official death toll from the cyclone that hit the impoverished islands earlier this month is at least 35, with some 2,500 injured.
But the prefect in the French territory on December 15 estimated that there were "certainly several hundred" victims, speculating that the death toll could rise to "several thousand".
Since the storm battered the remote archipelago, rumours have circulated about possible mass graves in hard-to-reach areas still inaccessible to rescue teams.
Doubts about the actual toll are linked to the makeshift dwellings where most potential victims lived as well as the Muslim tradition of burying the dead within 24 hours.
Many inhabitants of the flimsy shantytowns that were destroyed in the storm came from the neighbouring Comoros.
French President Emmanuel Macron visited Mayotte last Thursday and said the number of victims would "likely" exceed the first official tolls.
Rescue teams have been searching for people reported missing.
Cyclone Chido also hit Mozambique, on the southern African mainland, killing at least 120 people there, according to the country's disaster management agency.
Cyclone Chido death toll rises to 120 in Mozambique
Maputo (AFP) Dec 23, 2024 -
Cyclone Chido killed at least 120 people in Mozambique in its deadly rampage through the Indian Ocean last week, the country's disaster management agency said Monday, up 26 from a previous toll.
The cyclone, which devastated the French island territory of Mayotte before hitting the African mainland, also destroyed 110,000 homes in Mozambique, officials said.
It comes as the southern African nation reels from a deadly post-election crisis pitting the party in power since Mozambique's independence from Portugal against an opposition crying foul over alleged electoral fraud.
After making landfall the storm ravaged the northern province of Cabo Delgado with gusts of around 260 kilometres (160 miles) per hour, pelting it with 250 millimetres (10 inches) of rain in a day.
The region is regularly ravaged by tropical storms and is also wrestling with unrest from a long-running Islamist insurgency.
More than 500,000 of the 700,000 Mozambicans affected by the storm -- which experts say was made more intense by human-driven climate change -- are concentrated in Cabo Delgado.
In the hard-hit Mecufi district a mosque had its roof stripped by the gale, as seen in images taken by UNICEF.
The ruling Frelimo party's presidential candidate Daniel Chapo -- whose win at the ballot box in October has been denounced by the opposition as fraudulent -- visited the affected areas on Sunday.
At least 130 people have been killed in protests against Chapo's victory in an election that international observers say was marred by irregularities, according to Plataforma Decide.
That local civil society group's figures have been cited by Amnesty International.
- 'Our brothers need them' -
Chapo -- who is due to be sworn in as president on January 15 if the Constitutional Council approves the election results by Monday -- appealed on public television for citizens across the country to donate food and clothes.
"Even if we are using them, our brothers need them," he urged.
The protests against Frelimo's declared win have brought city centres to a standstill, with several of Mozambique's power plants shuttered as a result.
Police have been accused of using live rounds against demonstrators to suppress the protests.
Opposition leader Venancio Mondlane has threatened "chaos" if the Constitutional Council validates the initial results that found he came second in the October 9 polls.
For the time being, Mozambique remains the country with the heaviest death toll from Chido.
Seven days after the cyclone hit Mayotte, 35 people were reported dead and some 2,500 injured on that archipelago by the French Interior Ministry.
But it is feared the toll may rise sharply given the large number of undocumented migrants from the nearby Comoros islands, who tend to inhabit Mayotte's many shantytowns flattened by the storm.
The Comoros -- which also claims sovereignty over Mayotte -- declared a day of national mourning over Cyclone Chido's passage, despite having not recorded any deaths on its territory.
After sweeping over Mozambique, the cyclone moved into Malawi.
Despite losing intensity it killed 13 people and injured nearly 30 there, according to the Malawian disaster management agency.
The storm hit as Malawi and Mozambique were grappling with one of the worst droughts to hit southern Africa in a century, according to the United Nations.
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