At least two people have died following the passage of Cyclone Chido on the French island of Mayotte. According to Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, “precarious housing has been completely destroyed” and we can expect the toll “to be heavy”. He will go there on Monday.
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Roofs torn off, poles down, trees uprooted and neighborhoods completely devastated… A tropical cyclone of exceptional magnitude devastated the French island of Mayotte this Saturday. For the moment, two deaths have been recorded but we must expect this toll from Cyclone Chido to worsen, warned the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau who specified that it will “surely take days” to clarify the results of this “ dramatic situation ” because ” (we) must be able to go into the field, to inspect the rubble, the precarious habitat which has been completely destroyed “. The resigning minister also announced, after a crisis meeting, that he would go there on Monday.
In Kawéni, a district of Mamoudzou, the capital of the department, all the informal dwellings in the largest slum were destroyed, according to images. “ Everything was taken away, everything was razed “, a resident of the slum complained to AFP. In Mayotte, “ precarious housing » – shanty towns made up of sheet metal huts – concerns at least a third of the population. Around 100,000 people staying in “ unsound dwellings » had been identified in the archipelago by the authorities to be sheltered in more than 70 emergency accommodation centers.
Also readFrance: Mayotte hit hard by Cyclone Chido, residents cut off from the world
The resigning minister, who will go to Mayotte where he will arrive on Monday, announced the sending in “ five successive waves of reinforcements for civil security until Wednesday “, or approximately ” 800 people as well as equipment (…) but also medical staff “. The French Red Cross sent reinforcements of personnel to Mayotte from Reunion and France just before confinement, the humanitarian aid association said in a press release, fearing ” immense needs » and prepositioning reserves of drinking water and food on site.
But between the stormy seas, the damaged airport and the roads blocked by debris, rescue operations and the sending of reinforcements to Mayotte are becoming a headache. Water supply is also a problem in this area which already, on a daily basis, experiences regular water cuts. An airlift organized by the army will be set up from Reunion Island and a field hospital will be deployed in Mamoudzou because several services in the hospital center are no longer usable.
The future logistical problems are very worrying.
Prime Minister François Bayrou
This natural disaster joins many that have already affected the earth in recent years. Should we see a link with global warming? For Davide Faranda, climatologist and CNRS research director at Paris-Saclay University, it is responsible for the intensification of these phenomena, but not for their multiplication. This is particularly linked to “ exceptional water temperature », specifies the specialist who questions the capacity of our society to adapt to these ever more intense phenomena. “ In any case, we will not be able to adapt to these phenomena in a world with 3 or 4 degrees of warming”he warns.