France rushes help to Mayotte, where hundreds or even thousands died in Cyclone Chido

Cape Town: France was rushing help by ship and military aircraft to its poor overseas territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean on Monday after the island was shattered by its worst storm in nearly a century.

Authorities in Mayotte fear hundreds and possibly thousands of people have died in Cyclone Chido, although the official death toll on Monday morning stood at 14.

Rescue teams and medical personnel have been sent to the island off the east coast of Africa from France and from the nearby French territory of Reunion, as well as tons of supplies.

French television station TF1 reported Monday morning that Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau had arrived in Mamoudzou, the capital of Mayotte.

“It will take days and days to establish the human toll,” he told French media.

French authorities said more than 800 more personnel were expected to arrive in the coming days as rescuers comb through the devastation caused by Chido when it hit the densely populated archipelago of around 300,000 people on Saturday.

Mayotte Prefect François-Xavier Bieuville, the top French government official in Mayotte, told local TV station Mayotte la 1ere on Sunday that the death toll was several hundred people and could even be in the thousands.

He said Mayotte’s poor slums of metal shacks and other informal structures had suffered terrible damage and authorities were struggling to get an accurate count of the dead and injured after the worst cyclone to hit Mayotte since the 1930s.

Entire neighbourhoods have been flattened, while public infrastructure like the main airport and hospital have been badly damaged and the electricity

supply has been knocked out, French authorities said. The damage to the airport control tower means only military aircraft can fly into Mayotte, complicating the response.