Tens of thousands without water in Mayotte

Tens of thousands of people still lack access to water in Mayotte after the French Indian Ocean area was devastated by Cyclone Chido, while rescuers search for missing people.

Preliminary figures from the French Interior Ministry say 22 people have died, but the prefect of Mayotte warned the number could rise to thousands.

Health workers fear infectious diseases could spread as residents report a lack of clean drinking water and stores ration supplies. More help is expected to arrive on Wednesday.

As part of measures to prevent looting, islanders spent a first night under curfew between 10pm local time on Tuesday and 4am on Wednesday (7pm and 1am GMT).

“Everyone rushes to the shops to get water. There is a general shortage,” Ali Ahmidi Youssouf, 39, told AFP on Wednesday as he walked through the municipality of Pamandzi, off the archipelago’s main island, with a few bottles in his hand.

Half of the territory remains without electricity. Authorities said their priority was to restart damaged waterworks.

On Wednesday, authorities said the water system had been partially restored and they hoped 50% of the island’s population would have access to water by evening.

The French government announced that 120 tons of food would be distributed on Wednesday, while President Emmanuel Macron will visit Mayotte on Thursday.

Mayotte is one of the poorest parts of France, with many of its residents living in slums.

Wish – The worst storm to hit the archipelago in 90 years – brought winds of more than 225 kph (140 miles per hour) on Saturday, flattening areas where people lived in tin-roofed shacks and leaving fields of dirt and debris.

“It was like a steamroller that destroyed everything,” Nasrine, a teacher who did not give her last name, told AFP in her devastated neighborhood in Pamandzi.

Another witness to the storm told Reuters that roofs “flew away like they were pieces of paper.”

“A gust of wind broke the window and tore a wooden board. The boards were 2 meters by 3 meters,” said Diego Plato, a photographer with the French Legion’s 5th Foreign Regiment.

He added that many Legion buildings could no longer function because they no longer had roofs.

Rescuers are now searching for survivors in ruins, such as in the capital Mamoudzou, as they try to clear roads and clear rubble and fallen trees.

On Wednesday morning, Mamoudzou residents whose homes had weathered the storm hammered metal sheets onto damaged roofs.

Francois-Xavier Bieuville, prefect of Mayotte, previously told local media the death toll could rise significantly once the damage has been fully assessed.

He warned it would be “definitely several hundred” and could reach thousands.

Chido also killed at least 45 people in Mozambique and at least seven in Malawi, according to those countries’ disaster management authorities.

Officials said the relatively low official toll in Mayotte was because many areas were inaccessible and some victims were already buried.

The difficulty is compounded by uncertainty about Mayotte’s population size.

The area has an official population of 320,000, but authorities estimate that around 100,000 to 200,000 illegal migrants could be living there.

Initial figures from the Interior Ministry show that 1,373 people were injured in Mayotte.

France’s newly installed Prime Minister François Bayrou told parliament on Tuesday that there were “200 seriously injured and 1,500 wounded in relative distress.”

“I have never seen a disaster of this magnitude on national soil,” Bayrou said later in a post X.

“I think of the children whose homes have been washed away, whose schools have been almost completely destroyed and whose parents are extremely desperate.”

The government said it was sending aid via airlift from its other Indian Ocean territory, Reunion Island.

On Wednesday, 100 tonnes of food is to be distributed on the larger island of Grand-Terre in Mayotte, while 20 tonnes are to be distributed on the smaller island of Petite-Terre.

A French Navy support and relief ship is also scheduled to arrive in Mayotte on Thursday morning with 180 tons of cargo on board.

The ferry connecting Mayotte’s two main islands resumed operations on Wednesday, allowing some people affected by the storm to return to their families.

“I haven’t heard a word from my staff for five days,” a landowner who took the ferry and declined to give his name told Reuters. “It’s back to the Stone Age.”

Meanwhile, in Malawi, where Chido moved after moving via Mayotte, seven people were killed, authorities said.

Up to 20 of the country’s 29 districts were affected by “mild to severe damage”, affecting around 35,000 people, the disaster management agency said in a statement.

The number of deaths and the extent of the destruction is lower than in neighboring Mozambique where authorities put the death toll at 34.

Experts say seasonal storms like Chido are increasing in strength due to warmer ocean waters.

The cyclone poses another challenge to the government after months of political unrest Bayrou was appointed last week following the ouster of the former prime minister Michel Barnier.