‘Heavy’ toll feared after French island territory hit by cyclone Mayotte

Officials report at least two deaths, damage to properties as ‘unexpectedly violent’ cyclone hits island territory.

French officials are fearing a “heavy” death toll after Cyclone Chido hit Mayotte islands, leaving a trail of destruction on the overseas territory located in the Indian Ocean.

At least two people have been confirmed killed after the cyclone with gusts of high-speed wind barrelled through the French territory, obliterating shantytowns and damaging and destroying government buildings, the hospital and makeshift housing, according to French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou.

It has raised concerns about access to food, water and sanitation on the islands in the Indian Ocean, Bayrou told reporters after an evening inter-ministerial meeting on Saturday.

“Everyone understands that this was a cyclone that was unexpectedly violent,” Bayrou said.

Chido was also expected to make landfall on Sunday in northern Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado or Nampula provinces after battering Mayotte.

Located nearly 8,000km (4,970 miles) from Paris, a four-day journey by sea from France, Mayotte is significantly poorer than the rest of the country and has grappled with violence and social unrest for decades.

Tensions were exacerbated in the territory of 320,000 people earlier this year by a water shortage, as well as attempts to restrict citizenship rights.

Acting Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau added that Chido left a “dramatic” trail of destruction.

“It will take several days” to establish the death toll, but “we fear that it is heavy”, he said as he left a government crisis meeting chaired by Bayrou.

Retailleau will travel to Mayotte on Monday, his office said.

Thani Mohamed-Soilihi, the junior minister for Francophonie and international partnerships who was born in Mayotte, has not heard from his family or friends on the islands in the aftermath of the cyclone, Bayrou and Retailleau said.

The cyclone had put the region on high alert as it closed in on the African mainland, packing gusts of at least 226km/h (140mph).

The storm also hit the nearby Comoros islands, causing flooding and damaging homes.

The two confirmed deaths came on Petite-Terre, the smaller of Mayotte’s two major islands, a security source told the AFP news agency. The Reuters news agency put the death toll at four.

Acting Transport Minister Francois Durovray said on X that Petite-Terre’s Pamandzi airport had “suffered major damage”.

Chido is the latest in a string of storms worldwide to be fuelled by climate change, according to experts.

The “exceptional” cyclone was supercharged by particularly warm Indian Ocean waters, meteorologist Francois Gourand of France’s Meteo France weather service told AFP.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday it was similar in strength to cyclones Gombe in 2022 and Freddy in 2023, which killed more than 60 people and at least 86 in Mozambique, respectively.

It warned that some 1.7 million people were in danger, and said the remnants of the cyclone could also dump “significant rainfall” on neighbouring Malawi through Monday, potentially triggering flash floods.

Zimbabwe and Zambia were also expected to see heavy rains, it added.