Thousands feared dead in storm in Mayotte archipelago

(CLO) French officials said on Sunday that hundreds and even thousands of people may have died when the strongest storm in nearly a century hit the French archipelago of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean.

"I think there will definitely be hundreds of people, maybe thousands, even tens of thousands," Police Chief Francois-Xavier Bieuville told local Mayotte media channel La 1ere.

When asked about the death toll from the storm, named Chido, the French Interior Ministry said "it will be difficult to count all the victims" and that it is currently not possible to determine a specific number.

Photo: internet

"Regarding the number of casualties, it will be complicated, because Mayotte is a Muslim land, where the dead are buried within 24 hours," a French Interior Ministry official said earlier.

Typhoon Chido struck Mayotte on Saturday night, Meteo-France said, with winds of more than 200 km/h, destroying many homes and buildings. It was the strongest storm to hit the islands in more than 90 years, the agency said.

"Honestly, what we are going through is a tragedy, you feel like you are in the aftermath of a nuclear war… I have seen whole neighbourhoods disappear," said one resident in Mayotte.

Aerial footage shared by the French gendarmerie shows the ruins of hundreds of makeshift homes scattered across the hills of one of the islands of Mayotte, which has been a hotspot for illegal immigration from neighboring Comoros.

Mayotte is a small French archipelago located near Africa.

Over the past few decades, thousands of people have attempted to cross the sea from the Comoros, off the coast of East Africa, to Mayotte, which has a higher standard of living and benefits from France’s welfare system. According to the French Interior Ministry, there are more than 100,000 undocumented migrants living in Mayotte.

Located nearly 8,000km from Paris, Mayotte is significantly poorer than the rest of France and has struggled with gang violence and social unrest for decades. More than three-quarters of Mayotte's people live below the French poverty line.

The cyclone continued to make landfall in northern Mozambique on Sunday, but the intensity of its impact remained unclear.

Hoang Anh (according to AJ, CNN, Reuters)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/hang-nghin-nguoi-co-the-da-thiet-mang-do-sieu-bao-o-quan-dao-mayotte-thuoc-phap-post325770.html