Many dead as Cyclone Chido devastates French territory of Mayotte

At least 14 people were killed in Mayotte when a fierce cyclone battered the French Indian Ocean territory, authorities said on Sunday, with officials warning it will take days to know the full toll.

Rescue workers and supplies are being rushed in by air and sea, but their efforts are likely to be hindered by damage to airports and electricity distribution in a territory where even clean drinking water was already subject to chronic shortages.

The toll of 14 was counted in a provisional list compiled by authorities, a security source told AFP. Nine people were gravely wounded and fighting for their lives in hospital, said Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, mayor of Mayotte's capital Mamoudzou, while 246 more were seriously injured.

"The hospital is hit, the schools are hit. Houses are totally devastated," he said, adding that the hurricane "spared nothing."

Mayotte's 320,000 residents had been ordered into lockdown on Saturday as Cyclone Chido bore down on the islands around 500 kilometres east of Mozambique with gusts of at least 226 kilometres per hour.

Electricity poles were hurled to the ground, trees uprooted and sheet-metal roofs and walls torn off improvised structures inhabited by at least one-third of the population.

"It will take several days" to establish the full death toll, but "we fear that it is heavy," Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said late on Saturday after a government crisis meeting in Paris.

Information from the locked-down population, in shock and largely cut off from water and electricity supplies, is slow to filter out, a source familiar with the recovery effort told AFP.

One local resident, Ibrahim, told AFP of "apocalyptic scenes" as he made his way through the main island, having to clear blocked roads for himself.

Scramble for supplies

Retailleau will travel to Mayotte on Monday, his office said, alongside 160 soldiers and firefighters to reinforce the 110 already deployed to the islands.

Medical personnel and equipment were being delivered from Sunday by air and sea, said the prefecture in La Reunion, another French Indian Ocean territory some 1,400 kilometres away on the other side of Madagascar.

A first aid plane landed in Mayotte at around 3:30 pm local time (1230 GMT) with three tonnes of medial supplies, blood for transfusions and 17 medical staff, authorities in La Reunion said, with two military aircraft expected to follow. A navy patrol ship was to depart La Reunion with personnel and equipment including for electricity supplier EDF.

Pope Francis, visiting French Mediterranean island Corsica on Sunday, urged people to pray for Mayotte residents.

Agence France-Presse