Nearly 1 000 feared dead after cyclone hits France’s Mayotte

Emergency crews on Monday worked to rescue survivors amid scenes of devastation.

Local officials in the French territory Mayotte fear as many as 1 000 people have died after Tropical Cyclone Chido hit the archipelago off the coast of Mozambique on Saturday.

Emergency crews on Monday worked to rescue survivors amid scenes of devastation, with houses and schools destroyed and water, power and communications cut in what was the worst storm to hit the area in nearly a century. The death toll stood at 14 on Monday but local officials said it was likely higher.

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“I think there are some several hundred dead, maybe we’ll get close to a thousand, even thousands,” Mayotte Prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville, a senior official, told a local media channel on Sunday.

The cyclone caused extensive damage across the densely populated French territory before hitting the nearby islands of Comoros and Madagascar and making landfall in Mozambique.

France’s interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, arrived in the capital Mamoudzou on Monday, according to French media, as the nation rushed hundreds of soldiers and firefighters to assist in recovery efforts.

Retailleau said during a press conference that it was not possible yet to provide a death toll, while adding that “clearly the island is totally devastated.”

The government is working to send more medicine, food and water, he said. Retailleau highlighted the logistical challenges: Currently, planes are landing only during the day because the signaling system is damaged, making reopening night traffic a priority.

In a post on X, Macron said he would travel to Mayotte in coming days and decree a day of national mourning.

The cyclone hit Mayotte with winds of more than 200 kilometers (124 miles) per hour, according to forecaster Meteo-France.

Around one-third of the territory’s 320 000 residents live in shantytowns, whose sheet-metal roofs are vulnerable to high winds. Mayotte is France’s poorest territory and is heavily dependent on aid from Paris.

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