Mayotte was just emerging this Wednesday morning from a first night under curfew, put in place to ensure security and avoid looting after the deadly passage of Cyclone Chido in the archipelago, where Emmanuel Macron is expected on Thursday.
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The Head of State, who announced on Monday December 16 that he would go there in the coming days, “ will be Thursday in Mayotte », announced the Élysée on Tuesday evening. The new Prime Minister François Bayrou, under fire for having favored the municipal council of Pau on Monday in the midst of the Mahoran crisis, will follow suit as soon as “ his government will be formed “, in order to ” mobilize all state resources “, he said on France 2.
“ I have never seen a disaster of this magnitude on national soil. I think of the children who saw their houses blown up, whose schools were almost all destroyed and whose parents are madly anguished. », spoke François Bayrou still on France 2.
The difficult count of victims
The situation remains very difficult in the archipelago, where according to a still very provisional assessment, the passage of Cyclone Chido left 22 dead and 1,373 injured, according to figures communicated by the Ministry of the Interior.
The authorities fear “ several hundred » of deaths, perhaps even “ a few thousand » in the poorest department in France. The count is all the more complicated as Mayotte is a land of strong Muslim tradition and that, according to the rites of Islam, the deceased must be buried as quickly as possible. The residents themselves begin to sift through the rubble and bury their dead.
In a neighborhood of Mamoudzou, I heard a gentleman who said that he had buried a 15-year-old girl who was in the slums. Twice, I heard two people who said the same thing, that they had buried people who were in the slums.
Said Houcène, a resident of Mamoudzou, says that residents bury the dead
The Mamoudzou hospital, the only one in the city, suffered heavy material damage, with flooding and an inoperative operating theater. Despite the influx of patients, healthcare staff say they are not overwhelmed, which makes the number of deaths after the cyclone even more fearful.
There is a significant influx of patients, but we are not overwhelmed. Which unfortunately leaves us thinking a little bit of the worst given the scale of the cyclone and given the precariousness on the island. The people, I think, are mostly under the rubble and there is no research that has yet been done to get people out of the rubble.
Naouelle, caregiver at Mamoudzou hospital
“ 70% of residents were seriously affected “, underlined Bruno Retailleau, resigning Minister of the Interior, announcing the arrival ” in the coming days » 400 additional gendarmes to lend a hand to the 1,600 gendarmes and police officers present on the archipelago.
Also readIn Mayotte, the housing crisis has worsened the toll of Cyclone Chido
Resources that are running out
Stocks of food and water in stores are decreasing dangerously, reports our correspondent in Mamoudzou, Lisa Morisseau. “ We are in survival mode », says a father met on Tuesday. To fit in supermarkets, purchases are rationed, no more than one pack of water per customer. In some parts of the island there are almost no shops open. Residents have to travel long distances to get supplies, but this poses a problem when the population no longer has fuel.
Water and electricity are also lacking and 80% of the telephone network is still unavailable. So in the face of widespread hardship, solidarity is essential. Those who lost their homes during the cyclone are often sheltered by relatives. Others settled together to pool supplies. And still in mutual aid, some make their generators available to all of them for a few hours to allow them to regain some battery power on their cell phones, for example.
And to avoid looting and ensure the safety of residents, a curfew was introduced for the entire archipelago from Tuesday evening, from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. The priority is to ensure “ vital needs » residents with water and food, insisted Bruno Retailleau on Monday.
Sending food, tents and tarpaulins
Some 120 tonnes of food are to be distributed this Wednesday on the two Mahoran islands, according to the authorities. On the military side, an A400M transport plane shuttles Réunion-Mayotte for possible evacuations of vulnerable people and a second A400M provides a direct connection from mainland France to Mayotte, we learned from the army headquarters. . The Overseas Support and Assistance Building (BSAOM) Champlain, which set sail from Reunionis due to arrive Thursday morning in Mayotte with 180 tonnes of freight on board, according to the same source.
Another priority for the authorities is sending tents and tarpaulins to restore habitats that have been completely destroyed or whose roofs have been torn off by wind gusts that reached more than 220 km/h. In the urgency of finding a roof over their heads, many residents have already started clearing out and rebuilding without waiting for help.
We have 8,000 plastic sheets measuring 4m by 6m, 4000 housing reconstruction kits, we are embarking on an operation which will last several months…
[Reportage] In Reunion, emergency aid is organized
Cyclone Chido, the most intense that Mayotte has experienced in 90 years, devastated the Indian Ocean territory on December 14, where around a third of the population lives in precarious housing, which has been completely destroyed. It also killed at least 34 people in Mozambique, injured more than 300 and destroyed more than 20,000 homes, the National Institute for Risk and Disaster Management announced on Tuesday.
Also readCyclone Chido: in Mayotte, lack of water raises fears of a return of cholera