Cyclone Chido, the severest storm to hit the French archipelago Mayotte in 90 years, may have killed “several hundred” people according to authorities.
Prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville told the local broadcaster Mayotte La 1ere that the death toll could be in the thousands. He said he could not provide a specific figure.
The French interior ministry said “it will be difficult to account for all victims” at this stage. Officials previously confirmed at least 11 deaths.
It was difficult to ascertain the exact death toll after the cyclone, which also raised concerns about access to food, water, and sanitation, authorities said on Sunday.
Weather forecaster Meteo France said the cyclone swept through the French territory in the Indian Ocean, bringing winds of more than 200km/h (124mph) and damaging makeshift housing, government buildings and a hospital.
“Everyone understands that this was a cyclone that was unexpectedly violent,” French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou told reporters after an evening inter-ministerial meeting on Saturday.
Chido was also expected to make landfall on Sunday in northern Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado or Nampula provinces after battering Mayotte.
Located nearly 8,000km (4,970 miles) from Paris, a four-day journey by sea from France, Mayotte is significantly poorer than the rest of the country and has grappled with violence and social unrest for decades.
Tensions were exacerbated in the territory of 320,000 people earlier this year by a water shortage, as well as attempts to restrict citizenship rights.
“For the toll, it’s going to be complicated, because Mayotte is a Muslim land where the dead are buried within 24 hours,” a French Ministry of Interior official said.
Earlier, acting Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said Chido left a “dramatic” trail of destruction.
“It will take several days” to establish the death toll, but “we fear that it is heavy”, he said as he left a government crisis meeting chaired by Bayrou.
Retailleau will travel to Mayotte on Monday, his office said.
Thani Mohamed-Soilihi, the junior minister for Francophonie and international partnerships who was born in Mayotte, has not heard from his family or friends on the islands in the aftermath of the cyclone, Bayrou and Retailleau said.
The cyclone had put the region on high alert as it closed in on the African mainland, packing gusts of at least 226km/h (140mph).
The storm also hit the nearby Comoro Islands, causing flooding and damaging homes.
Acting Transport Minister Francois Durovray said on X that Petite-Terre’s Pamandzi airport had “suffered major damage”.
Chido is the latest in a string of storms worldwide to be fuelled by climate change, according to experts.
The “exceptional” cyclone was supercharged by particularly warm Indian Ocean waters, meteorologist Francois Gourand of France’s Meteo France weather service told the AFP news agency.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday it was similar in strength to cyclones Gombe in 2022 and Freddy in 2023, which killed more than 60 people and at least 86 in Mozambique, respectively.
It warned that some 1.7 million people were in danger, and said the remnants of the cyclone could also dump “significant rainfall” on neighbouring Malawi through Monday, potentially triggering flash floods.
Zimbabwe and Zambia were also likely to see heavy rains, it added.
