Race against time for Mayotte rescuers after cyclone

SAINT DE LA REUNION, France: Rescuers raced against time Monday to reach survivors after a powerful cyclone hit the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, laying to waste the territory’s many shantytowns, with hundreds feared dead.

Cyclone Chido caused major damage to Mayotte’s airport and cut off electricity, water and communication links when it barrelled down on France’s poorest territory on Saturday.

Prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville expects the final death toll will reach “close to a thousand or even several thousand”, he told broadcaster Mayotte la Premiere.

The mayor of Mayotte’s capital Mamoudzou, Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, told AFP the storm “spared nothing”.

“The hospital is hit, the schools are hit. Houses are totally devastated,” he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron will host a crisis meeting on the disaster in Paris at 6:00 pm (1700 GMT), the presidency said.

France’s Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau will travel to Mayotte on Monday, his office said, with 160 soldiers and firefighters to reinforce the 110 already deployed.

Chido was packing winds of at least 226 kilometres (140 miles) per hour when it slammed into Mayotte, which lies to the east of Mozambique.

At least a third of the territory’s 320,000 residents live in shantytowns, where homes with sheet-metal roofs were flattened by the storm.

As authorities assessed the scale of the disaster, a first aid plane reached Mayotte on Sunday.

It carried three tonnes of medical supplies, blood for transfusions and 17 medical staff, according to authorities in La Reunion.

Another French Indian Ocean territory, about 1,400 kilometres away, La Reunion, is serving as a logistics base for the rescue operation.

Patrice Latron, prefect of Reunion, said residents of Mayotte were facing “an extremely chaotic situation, immense destruction”.

Two military aircraft are expected to follow the initial aid flight, while a navy patrol ship was also due to depart La Reunion.