France warns Mayotte cyclone toll to rise

Cyclone Chido devastates Mayotte, killing 21, with toll feared to rise; curfew imposed to prevent looting.

SAINT-DENIS DE LA REUNION:

The toll from the devastating cyclone that ripped through the French overseas territory of Mayotte risks rising, the prime minister said Tuesday, as the authorities announced a nighttime curfew to thwart looting.

According to the latest toll, 21 people are confirmed to have been killed by Cyclone Chido when it barrelled into the archipelago at the weekend.

But authorities fear that hundreds, and possibly even thou-sands, will be confirmed dead once the true scale of the toll is revealed after the rubble is cleared and roads are un-blocked.

In a sign of the potential magnitude of the tragedy, the Red Cross said it feared more than 200 of its volunteers were missing on Mayotte.

Cyclone Chido was the latest in a string of storms world-wide fuelled by climate change, with the exceptional system being super-charged by particularly warm Indian Ocean waters, according to experts.

"The toll is uncertain for the moment... The toll is, as of to-day, at more than 20 dead, 200 badly wounded and 1,500 wounded in a relative state of urgency," Prime Minister Francois Bayrou told parliament. "This toll could rise. We all know this," he added.

The health services are in tatters while power and mobile phone services have been knocked out. The airport is closed to civilian flights and there is mounting concern over how to ensure supplies of drinking water.

Bayrou said progress was being made with about 50 per-cent of the electricity network restarted, with a target of 75 percent "by the end of the week". The main hospital has recovered around half of its activity, and "about 80 percent of the road network is accessible again", he added.

The curfew from 10:00 pm to 4:00 am (1900 GMT to 0100 GMT) is being put in place as a security measure to prevent looting, the French interior ministry said.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who chaired a crisis meeting on Monday night, has described the situation as a "tragedy".

Late Tuesday, Macron said he would visit territory on Thursday, cutting short a trip to Brussels to meet Europe-an Union leaders.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who on Monday visited the island, said that Mayotte has been "completely devastated", with 70 percent of inhabitants affected.

Mayotte is France's poorest region, with an estimated one-third of the population living in shantytowns whose flimsy sheet metal-roofed homes offered scant protection against the storm.

"We're starting to run out of water. In the south, there's been no running water for five days," said Antoy Abdallah, a resident of Tsoundzou in the territory's capital Ma-moudzou. "We're completely cut off from the world," the 34-year-old lamented.

Most of Mayotte's population is Muslim and religious tradi-tion dictates that bodies must be buried rapidly, meaning some may never be counted. Assessing the toll is further complicated by irregular immigration to Mayotte, especially from the Comoros islands to the north, meaning much of the population is not even registered.

Mayotte officially has 320,000 inhabitants but authorities estimate there could be 100,000 to 200,000 more people, taking into account illegal immigration.

Ousseni Balahachi, a former nurse, said some people did not dare venture out to seek assistance, "fearing it would be a trap" designed to remove them from Mayotte.

Many had stayed put "until the last minute" when it proved too late to escape the cyclone, she added. After hitting Mayotte, Cyclone Chido made landfall in Mozambique, claiming at least 34 lives and destroying 23,600 homes, authorities said.

Mayotte is one of several French overseas territories ruled from Paris.

French military planes have been shuttling between Mayotte and the island of La Reunion, also a French overseas territory, to the east which was spared the cyclone and is serving as the hub for rescue efforts.

The first air evacuation of 25 badly wounded people from Mayotte to La Reunion took place on Monday night, Health Minister Genevieve Darrieussecq said.

The disaster poses a major challenge for a government on-ly operating in a caretaker capacity, days after Macron appointed the sixth prime minister of his presidency.

Bayrou was facing a torrent of criticism less than a week into the job after choosing to chair a provincial town hall meeting in his capacity as mayor of Pau instead of attending Macron's crisis meeting in person.

French National Assembly speaker Yael BraunPivet, a member of Macron's centrist party, said that "instead of taking a plane for Pau" Bayrou should have "taken a plane for Mamoudzou" instead.