The satellite image in the photo illustrates the power of Cyclone Chido which hit the island on December 14, destroying almost everything in its path.
“The island is totally devastated,” lamented Monday evening at a press conference the resigning Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau. And the Overseas Minister adds: “No place has been spared.” Statements confirmed by before/after satellite images published by Maxar Technologies, witnesses to the devastating passage of Cyclone Chido. While the provisional toll is 22 dead this Tuesday and more than 1,300 injured, some of whom are in absolute emergency, the prefect of Mayotte, François-Xavier Bieuville, predicted on Monday “hundreds of deaths”, or even “a few thousand deaths”. .
For the moment, it is difficult to accurately establish the human toll as chaos reigns there: roads cut, no more access to water or electricity… “Precarious housing, there is no longer any nothing, less precarious housing has suffered greatly,” Bruno Retailleau explained again on Monday. However, in Mayotte, no less than a third of the population lives in precarious housing, or nearly 100,000 people. In a report dating from 2017, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee) estimated that around four out of ten homes were made of sheet metal on the island and did not have running water. “It’s wood, sheet metal on clay hills. You imagine the wind rushing in, plus the rain creating mudslides,” explains Florent Vallée, the director of emergency and emergency services. French Red Cross operations at the AFP, including The World echoes.
In addition to the power of the elements, the very precariousness of housing in Mayotte led to such damage, although the strongest buildings also suffered from the passage of Chido, often with roofs torn off. No less than 60,000 m² of tarpaulins must be transported to the site to compensate for the faulty roofs during repairs. Now there is also the question of rebuilding the “slums” of this island, which is particularly prone to immigration. “We want a reconstruction which is sustainable, which is coherent, which is united, which is responsible. We cannot envisage that Mayotte has survived to return to anarchy, whether it is urban anarchy or social anarchy” , confided this Tuesday Estelle Youssouffa, LIOT deputy for the archipelago, to the microphone of France Inter.