Tens of thousands without water in Mayotte

Tens of thousands of people are still without access to water in Mayotte after the French Indian Ocean territory was devastated by Cyclone Chida, and rescuers are scrambling to find missing people.

According to preliminary figures from the French interior ministry, 22 people were killed, but the prefect of Mayotte warned that the number of victims could rise to thousands.

Health workers are concerned about the potential for infectious diseases to spread as residents report a shortage of clean drinking water and stores limit supplies. More help should arrive on Wednesday.

Islanders spent the first night under a curfew from 22:00 local time on Tuesday to 04:00 on Wednesday (19:00 and 01:00 GMT) as part of measures to prevent looting.

“Everyone is rushing to the shops for water. There is a shortage in general,” Ali Ahmidi Yusuf, 39, told AFP on Wednesday as he walked with several bottles in hand in the community of Pomandi off the archipelago’s main island.

Half of the territory remains without electricity. The authorities have said that their priority is to restore the damaged water plants.

Authorities said on Wednesday that the water supply system had been partially restored and they hoped that 50% of the island’s population would have access to water by the evening.

The French government said 120 tonnes of food should be distributed on Wednesday, and President Emmanuel Macron plans to visit Mayotte on Thursday.

Mayotte is one of the poorest parts of France, with many of its residents living in slums.

desire – the strongest storm to hit the archipelago in 90 years – packed winds of more than 225 km/h (140 mph) on Saturday, flattening areas where people lived in metal-roofed shacks and leaving fields of mud and debris.

“It was like a steamroller that crushed everything,” Nasreen, a teacher who did not give her last name, told AFP in her devastated neighborhood in Pamandi.

Another witness to the storm told Reuters that roofs “flew like papers”.

“The gust of wind broke the window and tore the wooden board. The boards were 2 by 3 m (6.5 by 9.8 ft),” said Diego Plata, a photographer with the 5th Foreign Regiment of the French Legion.

He added that many legion buildings can no longer function because they no longer have roofs.

Rescuers are now searching for survivors in the ruins, such as in the capital Mamoudzu, while trying to unblock roads and clear debris and fallen trees.

On Wednesday morning, residents of Mamudzov, whose houses survived the storm, covered the damaged roofs with metal sheets.

The prefect of Mayotte, François-Xavier Beauville, previously informed the local media about this the death toll could rise significantly after a full damage assessment.

He warned that it would “definitely be a few hundred” and could reach thousands.

Chido also killed at least 45 people in Mozambique and at least seven in Malawi, according to those countries’ disaster management departments.

Officials said the relatively low official death toll in Mayotte was because many areas were inaccessible and some victims had already been buried.

The difficulty is compounded by uncertainty about Mayotte’s population.

The territory officially has a population of 320,000, but authorities estimate that between 100,000 and 200,000 undocumented migrants may be living there.

Initial figures from the Ministry of the Interior indicate that 1,373 people were injured in Mayotte.

Newly appointed French Prime Minister Francois Bairro told parliament on Tuesday that “200 are seriously injured and 1,500 are in a relatively immediate condition.”

“I have never seen a disaster of this magnitude on national soil,” Bayrou said later in a message on X.

“I think of the children whose homes have been swept away, whose schools are almost all destroyed and whose parents are very confused.”

The government said it was sending supplies via airlift from its other Indian Ocean territory, Reunion Island.

On Wednesday, 100 tons of food are to be distributed on the larger island of Grand Terre in Mayotte, while 20 tons will be distributed on the smaller island of Petit Terre.

A French naval support and aid vessel is also due to arrive in Mayotte on Thursday morning with 180 tons of cargo on board.

The ferry connecting the two main islands of Mayotte resumed service on Wednesday, allowing some people caught in the storm to return to their families.

“I haven’t heard a word from my staff for five days,” a landowner traveling on the ferry, who declined to be named, told Reuters. “It’s back to the Stone Age.”

Meanwhile, in Malawi – where Chida was headed after crossing through Mayotte – authorities say seven people have died.

A statement from the disaster management department said up to 20 of the country’s 29 districts had suffered “light to severe damage”, affecting about 35,000 people.

The number of dead and the level of destruction lower than neighboring Mozambique authorities estimated the death toll at 34.

Experts say seasonal storms like Chida are getting stronger because of warming ocean waters.

The cyclone poses another challenge for the government after months of political turmoil, with Bairu was appointed last week after the ouster of the former prime minister Michel Barnier.