Local officials in the French territory of Mayotte fear as many as 1,000 people have died after Tropical Cyclone Chido hit the island off the coast of Mozambique on Saturday.
“I think there are some several hundred dead, maybe we’ll get close to a thousand, even thousands,” Mayotte Prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville, a senior official, told local television. France’s interior minister and 160 firefighters and soldiers will travel to the island to join 110 French troops already working on recovery efforts.
The cyclone caused extensive damage across the French territory, cutting electricity, water and communication links. It also hit the nearby Comoros islands and Madagascar, before making landfall on Mozambique.
According to forecaster Meteo-France, the cyclone hit Mayotte with winds of more than 200 kph (124 mph).
Around one-third of the territory’s 320,000 residents live in shantytowns, whose sheet-metal roofs are vulnerable to high winds. Mayotte is France’s poorest territory and is heavily dependent on aid from Paris.
Bloomberg
