French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte on Thursday to survey the devastation caused by Cyclone Chido and immediately got a first-hand account of the devastation wreaked on the French territory.
“Mayotte has been demolished,” Assane Haloi, a security agent, said after Macron disembarked from the plane.
Macron was greeting a line of people when Héloïse took him by the hand and spoke for a minute about the harrowing conditions the islands have faced since Saturday, when in almost a century The most powerful cyclone hit French territory off the coast. Of Africa.
“We are without water, without electricity, with nowhere to go because everything has collapsed,” he said. “We can’t even take shelter, we are all drenched with our children and can cover ourselves with whatever we have and sleep.”
number of dead unknown
French officials said at least 31 people were killed and more than 1,500 were injured, more than 200 of them in critical condition. But it is feared that hundreds or thousands of people have died.
Macron arrived shortly after the Associated Press and other outside journalists were able to reach Mayotte to provide accounts of survivors of the horror over the weekend, when winds exceeded 220 kilometers per hour (136 mph) in and around The roofs and walls of the houses collapsed. People are taking shelter inside.
In Kaveni, a slum on the outskirts of the capital Mamoudzou, a cluster of hilltop homes has been reduced to piles of corrugated metal, plastic, bedding and clothing, and scraps of wood, marking the structures that once stood there. Used to be home.
“Those of us who are here are still in shock, but God allowed us to survive,” Nasirou Hamidouni said as he dug through the debris of his former home. “We are sad. We cannot sleep because of the houses that have been destroyed.”
Macron toured the damage by helicopter and then met patients and staff at a hospital, who he described as working around the clock.
A woman working in a psychiatric unit became emotional as she explained that staff were exhausted and unable to care for patients.
“Help the hospital staff, help the hospital,” pleaded the woman, whose name was not known. “Everyone has been wiped out from top to bottom.”
More help on the way
Macron, who was wearing a traditional red, black and gold Mayotte scarf over his white dress shirt and tie, put his hand on her shoulder as he wiped away tears.
He tried to reassure people that food, medical aid and additional rescue workers had arrived with him, and that more help was on the way in the form of water and a field hospital set up on Friday. The French military said a navy ship brought 180 tons of aid and equipment.
But the trip took a turn for the worse when Macron was criticized for not being able to communicate with them about what was happening on the ground and one man said he had been without water for six days in Ouangani. Or there were visits from rescue services.
The President said it took the army four days to clear roads and plan to deliver aid.
“If you want to keep yelling to get airtime,” Macron said, when the man said he did not intend to yell. “If you are interested in my response, if not I will leave.”
Residents have expressed anguish over not knowing whether their loved ones were dead or missing, partly due to Muslim practice requiring hasty burials to bury the dead within 24 hours.
“We are dealing with open-air mass graves,” said Estelle Youssoufa, who represents Mayotte in the French parliament. “There are no rescuers, no one has come to retrieve the buried bodies.”
Macron acknowledged that many who died have not been reported. He said phone services would be repaired “in the coming days” so people can report their missing loved ones.
the poorest region of france
Mayotte, with a population of 320,000 inhabitants and an estimated 100,000 additional migrants, is the poorest region of France.
It is part of an archipelago located between the east coast of mainland Africa and northern Madagascar that was a French colony. In a 1974 referendum Mayotte voted to remain part of France as the rest of the islands became the independent nation of Comoros.
The cyclone devastated entire neighborhoods because many people ignored the warnings, thinking the storm would not be so severe.
Signs of the disaster and its effects were everywhere.
The roads remained submerged in puddles. Bright clothes were hung to dry on the wooden planks of houses and on the railings of a footbridge over a debris-strewn stream in the Kaveni slum. A large number of motorcycles and cars are lined up at a gas station still in service.
Families were spread out on blankets in a school where 500 people were taking shelter. Women washed clothes in buckets of water and children played with the pieces of a giant chess board.
Alibouna Haithouna, a displaced mother of four, was with her mother, who was forced to leave the hospital after her son died.
“There was a tragedy there. We lost our brother. We’re here,” Haithouna said. “My brother’s body, we have not been able to take it from the hospital because there is a lot of paperwork to do and besides you have to pay to bring the body back.”