Race against time for Mayotte rescuers after cyclone |

Rescuers raced against time to reach survivors on Monday after a powerful cyclone hit the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, devastating the territory’s many slums.

Cyclone Chido caused extensive damage to Mayotte airport and disrupted power, water and communications links as it bore down on France’s poorest region on Saturday.

Prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville expects the final death toll to reach “close to a thousand or even several thousand,” he told broadcaster Mayotte la Premiere.

The mayor of Mayotte’s capital Mamoudzou, Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, told AFP the storm “spared nothing”.

“The hospital is affected, the schools are affected. Houses are completely destroyed,” he said.

According to his office, France’s Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau will travel to Mayotte on Monday with 160 soldiers and firefighters to reinforce the 110 soldiers already deployed.

Chido was blowing with winds of at least 226 kilometers per hour when it hit Mayotte, east of Mozambique.

At least a third of the territory’s 320,000 residents live in slums where houses with tin roofs were flattened by the storm.

One resident, Ibrahim, told AFP of “apocalyptic scenes” as he walked through the main island and had to clear blocked roads himself.

As authorities assessed the extent of the disaster, a first aid plane arrived in Mayotte on Sunday.

According to authorities in Reunion Island, it was carrying three tons of medical supplies, blood for transfusions and 17 medical personnel.

La Réunion, another area in the French Indian Ocean about 1,400 kilometers away, is serving as the logistics base for the rescue operation.

Patrice Latron, prefect of Réunion, said Mayotte residents were facing an “extremely chaotic situation and immense destruction.”

The first relief flight is expected to be followed by two military aircraft, while a Marine patrol ship is also expected to depart Reunion Island.

– International support commitments –

There have been international commitments to help Mayotte, including from the regional Red Cross organization PIROI.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc was “ready to provide support in the coming days.”

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, meanwhile, said the organization was “ready to support communities in need of essential health care.”

With around 100,000 people estimated to be living in secret on Mayotte, it is proving difficult to determine how many people have been affected by the cyclone, according to the French Interior Ministry.

Ousseni Balahachi, a former nurse, said some people did not dare to seek help because they “feared it could be a trap” designed to force them out of Mayotte.

Many stayed “until the last minute” when it proved too late to escape the cyclone, she added.

Chido shot across the Indian Ocean and landed in Mozambique on Sunday, where the official death toll was three.

“Many homes, schools and health facilities have been partially or completely destroyed,” the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF said.

The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA warned that 1.7 million people were at risk and that the remnants of the cyclone could also bring “significant rainfall” to Malawi by Monday.

Zimbabwe and Zambia could also expect heavy rainfall, it said.

Experts say Chido is the latest in a series of storms around the world fueled by climate change.

The “extraordinary” cyclone was strengthened by particularly warm waters in the Indian Ocean, meteorologist Francois Gourand of the Météo France weather service told AFP.

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