"Winds of up to 220 km/h caused by Cyclone Chido have devastated the French overseas territory of Mayotte. It's feared that more than 200... volunteers are missing," the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on X.
According to the latest official toll, 21 people are confirmed to have been killed by Cyclone Chido when it barrelled into the island and its surrounding archipelago at the weekend.
But authorities fear that hundreds, and possibly even thousands, were killed, once the true scale of the toll is revealed, after the rubble is cleared and roads unblocked.
The health services are in tatters, power and mobile phone services have been knocked out, the airport closed to civilian flights while there is mounting concern about how to ensure supplies of drinking water.
"What is really scary is the number of people that are still missing," IFRC spokesman Tommaso Della Longa told BBC television.
"Even the volunteers of the French Red Cross: we are talking about more than 200 volunteers already affected and are also missing, so they don't have any contact with them.
"French Red Cross colleagues already deployed some teams and some humanitarian aid before the cyclone hit, so they were there last week."
"But then of course, being prepared for such a heavy impact is very complicated, and now, internal logistics -- it's really again a nightmare."
"Even shelter is lacking at the moment, and then you need to organise distribution. So this will take time, without mentioning the search and rescue operation and people that can still be under the rubble."
"The hope here is that humanitarian aid can enter as soon as possible, but most importantly the search and rescue operation will find the largest number of people still alive."
The IFRC is the world's largest humanitarian network, bringing together more than 16 million volunteers around the world to help vulnerable people affected by disasters and health emergencies.
France to impose nighttime curfew on 'devastated' Mayotte
Saint-Denis De La Reunion (AFP) Dec 17, 2024 -
France said it will impose a nighttime curfew on the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte starting on Tuesday evening, after the French overseas territory was devastated by a cyclone feared to have killed hundreds.
According to the latest official toll, 21 people are confirmed to have been killed by Cyclone Chido when it barrelled into the island and its surrounding archipelago at the weekend.
But authorities fear that hundreds, and possibly even thousands, were killed, once the true scale of the toll is revealed, after the rubble is cleared and roads unblocked.
The health services are in tatters, power and mobile phone services have been knocked out, the airport closed to civilian flights while there is mounting concern about how to ensure supplies of drinking water.
Cyclone Chido is the latest in a string of storms worldwide fuelled by climate change, according to experts.
The curfew from 10:00 pm to 4:00 am local time (1900 GMT to 0100 GMT) is being put in place as a security measure to prevent looting, the French interior ministry said.
- 'Completely devastated' -
French President Emmanuel Macron, who chaired a crisis meeting on Monday night, has described the situation as a "tragedy" and promised to visit Mayotte in the coming days.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who on Monday was the first top Paris official to visit the island after the cyclone, said that Mayotte has been "completely devastated", with 70 percent of inhabitants affected.
"The toll will be heavy, too heavy," Retailleau warned.
He announced the arrival "in the coming days" of 400 additional gendarmes to reinforce the 1,600 gendarmes and police officers present on the archipelago, while specifying that there had "not really been any looting" so far.
The "exceptional" cyclone was super-charged by particularly warm Indian Ocean waters, meteorologist Francois Gourand of the Meteo France weather service told AFP.
Mayotte is France's poorest region, with an estimated one third of the population living in shantytowns whose flimsy sheet metal-roofed homes offered scant protection against the storm.
"We're starting to run out of water. In the south, there's been no running water for five days," said Antoy Abdallah, a resident of Tsoundzou in the territory's capital Mamoudzou.
"We're completely cut off from the world," the 34-year-old lamented.
Most of Mayotte's population is Muslim and religious tradition dictates bodies must be buried rapidly, meaning some may never be counted.
And assessing the toll is further complicated by irregular immigration to Mayotte, especially from the Comoros islands to the north, meaning much of the population is not even registered.
Mayotte officially has 320,000 inhabitants but authorities estimate there could be 100,000 to 200,000 more people, taking into account illegal immigration.
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.
- 'Not seen for decades' -
Mayotte is one of several French overseas territories that span the globe from the Caribbean to the Pacific via the Indian Ocean, and are integral parts of France which are ruled from Paris.
French military planes have been shuttling between Mayotte and the island of La Reunion, also a French overseas territory, to the east which was spared the cyclone and is serving as the hub for rescue efforts.
The first air evacuation of 25 badly wounded from Mayotte to La Reunion took place on Monday night, Health Minister Genevieve Darrieussecq said.
The disaster poses a major challenge for a government still only operating in a caretaker capacity, days after Macron appointed the sixth prime minister of his presidency.
New Prime Minister Francois Bayrou was facing a torrent of criticism less than a week into the job after choosing to chair a provincial town hall meeting in his capacity as mayor of the city Pau instead of attending in person a crisis meeting on Mayotte called by Macron.
"In the face of such a catastrophe -- of a kind that has not been seen on French territory for decades -- it is important to be side-by-side with the people," said French National Assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, a member of Macron's centrist party.
"I would have preferred that the prime minister, instead of taking a plane for Pau, took a plane for Mamoudzou," she told Franceinfo radio.
France PM under fire for chairing town hall meeting amid cyclone tragedy
Paris (AFP) Dec 17, 2024 -
France's new Prime Minister Francois Bayrou was Tuesday facing a torrent of criticism less than a week into the job after choosing to chair a provincial town hall meeting as the French Indian Ocean island of Mayotte grappled with the devastation wreaked by a cyclone.
Bayrou was named by President Emmanuel Macron on Monday as the sixth premier of his mandate, with the head of state giving his long-time ally the chance to pull France out of months of political crisis.
The veteran centrist had already ruffled some feathers by insisting that, in contrast to some predecessors, he keeps his post as mayor of the southwestern city of Pau even while serving as prime minister.
Bayrou headed to Pau Monday evening to chair the town hall meeting where he confirmed that he would stay on in the post that he has held for the last decade.
His presence there meant that he only attended a crisis meeting chaired by Macron on the situation in Mayotte, where hundreds are feared to have been killed by Cyclone Chido, via video conference.
French National Assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, a member of Macron's centrist party, criticised his trip to Pau.
"In the face of such a catastrophe -- of a kind that has not been seen on French territory for decades -- it is important to be side-by-side with the people.
"I would have preferred that the prime minister, instead of taking a plane for Pau, took a plane for Mamoudzou," she told Franceinfo radio, referring to Mayotte's capital.
The head of the faction of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) in parliament Mathilde Panot said that after "20 years of the politics of abandonment" of Mayotte, Bayrou "did not understand the symbol" he had sent by going to Pau.
On the right, Republicans (LR) MP Thibault Bazin said that the municipal council could have "done without" the presence of its mayor "given the situation in Mayotte and the urgency of having a government as soon as possible to give France a budget as soon as possible".
Appointed on Friday, Bayrou has still to name a government, with ministers from the previous administration staying on in a caretaker capacity.
In a day of high political drama Friday, when the identity of the new premier was only announced at the last moment, sources said Bayrou had effectively strong-armed Macron into naming him by threatening to withdraw the support of the centrist MoDem party that he leads.
Proud of his rural origins in southwestern France, Bayrou has also written a biography of one of Pau's most famous natives and his personal hero the king Henry IV, who was born in the Pau chateau and ruled from 1589 to his assassination in 1610.
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