“The damage is cataclysmic. The situation is very, very underestimated”: scenes of distress in the devastated Mayotte archipelago

Testimonies of distress in the French archipelago devastated by cyclone Chido. Emmanuel Macron, expected on site “in the coming days”, will declare national mourning.

Relief efforts were being organized in Mayotte on Monday, supported by 800 Civil Security personnel and
1,600 police officers and gendarmes to provide emergency assistance to the population after the devastating passage of Cyclone Chido.

A provisional toll indicates 20 deaths, but according to the prefecture, the victims could number in the “hundreds”, or even “thousands”.

Roads cut by piles of trees torn off by the wind. UIISC7/Civil Security

“It will take days and days” to establish it, warned the resigning Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, on site, while the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, chaired a crisis meeting in Paris.

“We will be there today and tomorrow”

“The time has come for urgency, we will be there today and tomorrow”, promised the Head of State, who will go there “in the coming days” and will decree “national mourning”. The winds of over 00 km/h that have swept through the Indian Ocean archipelago in recent days have left behind scenes of desolation, plunging the already impoverished population into utter distress. The inhabitants speak of an “apocalyptic” situation/em>.

“I thought it was going to be the end for me,” says John Balloz, a resident of Mamoudzou. “It's a disaster. There's nothing left… Mayotte has been devastated and needs rescuers to help the people in the shanty towns who are stuck, who lack water, who lack food, who lack care. We really need help”, warns Océane, a nurse in intensive care at the main hospital in Mamoudzou, on BFMTV.

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“There's no more water, no more electricity”

“Today, as always, it's the residents of the neighbourhoods themselves who are the first to help and the first to act. But the capacity to react with the island's own resources is extremely limited”, observes Julien Bousac, general coordinator of the Médecins du Monde teams, quoted by France Inter.

Clothilde Ollier: “The impression that the State has completely abandoned the population”,

“It's crazy, it's a French department, but we have the impression that the State has completely abandoned the population”, agrees the elected representative from Montpellier, Clothilde Ollier, stuck on the island. Hamada Ali, a teacher, describes streets covered in mud and trees, with residents now trying to take refuge in schools.

“The situation is very, very underestimated”

Or “80% of schools and colleges are destroyed. The damage is catastrophic. The situation is very, very underestimated, there is no more water, no more electricity”, Franck, a civil service executive, explains to us on site.

The population in shock in the poorest department in France. photos UIISC7/Civil Security

More than three-quarters of Mayotte's 321,000 inhabitants live below the national poverty line. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the archipelago is home to more than 100,000 undocumented migrants, most often in shanty towns that have not resisted.

“Precarious dwellings of which we cannot see the slightest trace”

“All the tin houses have been destroyed. Those with tin roofs were swept away by the cyclone. There are precarious dwellings of which we cannot see the slightest trace”, worries Hamada Ali.

Another threat taken into account, “we must be on acute health watch. We will be vigilant at “to stop all epidemics that could develop”, stressed, for her part, the resigning Minister of Health, Geneviève Darrieussecq, on France 2.