Paris, Dec 15 (EFE).- France is preparing to face one of the worst humanitarian disasters of this century after the passage of tropical cyclone Chido on Saturday over the Indian Ocean islands of Mayotte, where “several hundred deaths” are feared, according to estimates by the department’s government delegation.
In an interview with the public channel Mayotte la 1ère, François-Xavier Bieuville, delegate of the French government in the department of Mayotte, said that it would be “very difficult” to make a final assessment and that his worst prediction of a death toll is close to “a thousand or even several thousand.”
If these figures are confirmed, Cyclone Chido in Mayotte will be one of the worst disasters to hit France this century.
Spokespersons for the French Ministry of the Interior contacted by EFE insisted that the statement by Bieuville, who leads the crisis cell on the ground, was more of an “impression” rather than a count and that it was “impossible to know” the number of victims at the moment.
Before he met with Pope Francis in Corsica, French President Emmanuel Macron promised to “act” and sent his condolences to those “who have suffered the most terrible things in these last hours, some who have lost everything, even their lives.”
The Pope also dedicated a few words to the residents of Mayotte at the beginning of his short visit to Ajaccio, the capital of Corsica.
In his television interview, Bieuville explained one of the reasons why the final death toll will be hard to establish.
“I am afraid that there are deaths that we will not even be able to officially count because Muslim tradition (the majority religion in Mayotte) requires people to be buried within 24 hours” of their death, the government official said.
On Saturday, the islands with a population of 320,000 and located northwest of Madagascar, were devastated by the winds of a cyclone with gusts of 220 kilometers (136 miles) per hour.
This department considered the poorest in France, also has at least 100,000 unstable homes, most of which were destroyed on Saturday.
The international airport at Mamoudzou is closed to commercial flights, as are many roads. There is a general lack of electricity and drinking water.
The French government will send up to 800 police and civilian rescue workers, while a military transport plane carrying humanitarian aid has already landed in the capital, Mamoudzou.
Fear of looting in shops and homes persists in an already impoverished department that has to cope with a high migration rate from the neighboring Comoros archipelago and other Southeast African countries.
The government delegation decided to lift the red alert and permit the residents to move freely after being detained since Saturday morning. EFE
atc/dgp
