French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday arrived in Mayotte to assess the devastation wrought by Cyclone Chido, as rescuers raced to search for survivors and supply desperately needed aid.
His visit comes after Paris declared “exceptional natural disaster” measures for Mayotte late on Wednesday night to enable faster and “more effective management of the crisis.”
Macron’s plane landed at 10:10am with about 20 doctors, nurses and civil security personnel, as well as 4 tonnes of food and sanitary supplies.
Photo: Ludovic Marin, AFP
Officials have warned that the death toll from the most destructive cyclone in living memory on French territory could reach hundreds — possibly thousands — as rescuers race to clear debris and comb through flattened shantytowns to search for survivors.
After an “aerial reconnaissance of the disaster area,” Macron was to go to the Mamoudzou Hospital Center to “meet with the healthcare staff and the patients being treated,” an itinerary released on Wednesday showed. He was to also visit a neighborhood razed by the storm, meet with Mayotte officials and outline a reconstruction plan.
A preliminary toll from French Ministry of the Interior showed that 31 people had been confirmed killed, 45 seriously hurt and more than 1,370 had lighter injuries.
Officials said the toll could rise exponentially.
Authorities have also imposed a nightly curfew to prevent looting, and issued a decree freezing the prices of consumer goods in the archipelago at their pre-cyclone levels. Products affected include mineral water, food and beverages, batteries, as well as basic hygiene, everyday and construction products, and animal feed.
An estimated one-third of Mayotte’s population lives in shantytowns whose flimsy, sheet metal-roofed homes offered scant protection from the storm.
At the Mamoudzou Hospital Center, windows were blown out and doors ripped off from hinges. However, staff soldiered on despite the hospital being out of action, with electricians racing to restore a France’s largest maternity ward.
“It’s chaos,” medical and administrative assistant Anrifia Ali Hamadi said. “The roof is collapsing. We’re not very safe. Even I don’t feel safe here.”
With health services in tatters, and power and mobile phone services knocked out, French Overseas Minister Francois-Noel Buffet on Wednesday night declared “exceptional natural disaster” measures for Mayotte.
Under a new emergency system for overseas territories, the measures are to hold for a month and can be renewed every two.
Much of Mayotte’s population is Muslim, whose religious tradition dictates that bodies be buried rapidly, so some might never be identified.
Assessing the toll is further complicated by irregular immigration to Mayotte, meaning much of the population is unregistered.
Mayotte officially has 320,000 inhabitants, but authorities estimate the actual figure is 100,000 to 200,000 higher when taking into account undocumented migrants.
French military planes have been shuttling between Mayotte and the island of La Reunion. A “civilian maritime bridge” has also been launched between the island groups.
As of Wednesday, more than 100 tonnes of food was to be distributed, La Reunion Prefect Patrice Latron said, adding that about 200 shipping containers with supplies and water would arrive by tomorrow.
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