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At least 34 people have been killed by Cyclone Chido in Mozambique since it made landfall there on Sunday, the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said on Tuesday, citing figures from the southern African country’s civil protection agency.
“As of December 17, 2024, a total of 174,158 people were estimated to have been affected, with 34 people dying and 319 injured,” OCHA said in a statement.
Mozambique’s National Institute for Risk and Disaster Management (INGD) described the situation as “heartbreaking” reported the BBCand said the death toll would rise. An INGD spokesman told the BBC that most of those killed were hit by falling objects, such as broken brick walls.
Chido also destroyed or damaged 35,000 homes, affecting nine schools and 10 health facilities. according to preliminary reports from the Humanitarian and Emergency Operations Center of the Southern African Development Community.
Drone footage from Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province showed destroyed thatched houses near the coast and personal belongings strewn beneath the few palm trees still standing.
There were also changes in electricity and communications – the state energy supplier Electricidade de Moçambique announced that around 200,000 customers are currently without electricity.
Thousands of potential deaths in Mayotte
Chido landed in Mozambique after causing devastating damage in Mayotte, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean and France’s poorest overseas territory.
Hundreds or even thousands could die in Mayotte, which was hit hardest by Cyclone Chido, French officials said. It is the strongest storm to hit the area in 90 years.
So far, 22 deaths and about 1,400 injured have been confirmed, Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, the mayor of the capital Mamoudzou, told Radio France Internationale. But many parts of Mayotte are still inaccessible and some victims were buried before their deaths could be officially counted.
Mathieu Gouzou, a physical education teacher at Bouéni M’titi-Labattoir middle school in the town of Dzaouzi, told Reuters when asked about the fate of his students: “It’s impossible to find them all.”
“Many of them live in the nearby slums, no one can go there.”
The International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) and Red Crescent Societies said the number of victims was likely much higher, with about a third of the island’s population still missing due to poor communication.
“It is a small island of 300,000 people and because the cyclone disrupted power supplies, internet connectivity and telephone lines, about 100,000 people are still missing,” IFRC communications manager Nora Peter told Reuters.
It may take days before the full extent of the destruction is discovered. For now, essential supplies, medical and technical personnel and police arrived via airlift with La Réunion, the territory’s only lifeline.
“The priority today is water and food,” said Mayor Soumaila. “Unfortunately, people have died whose bodies have begun to decompose, which can lead to a hygiene problem.”
“We have no electricity. When night falls, there are people who take advantage of this situation.”
Dr. Claudia Lodesani of Doctors Without Borders said it was crucial to restore access to drinking water to avert outbreaks of cholera and other diseases.
VIEW | Scenes of devastation in the French overseas territory of Mayotte
The French interior minister arrived in Mayotte on Monday after Cyclone Chido devastated large parts of the archipelago off East Africa and a significant death toll was feared in the densely populated area.
“An epidemic is not inevitable, but there is a very high risk,” she said, saying that access to clear water and health services in the slums where many immigrants live was already difficult before the storm.
“France will quickly repair the hospital, but the situation in the slums is worrying,” Lodesani said.
More than three quarters of Mayotte’s 321,000 residents live in relative poverty. According to 2021 data from the INSEE statistics agency, Mayotte has an annual average disposable income of just over 3,000 euros (about 4,500 Canadian dollars) per resident, about eight times less than the Île-de-France region around Paris.
Concerns about undocumented immigrants
On the French mainland, the disaster sparked a political dispute over immigration, the environment and France’s treatment of its overseas territories.
Mayotte has struggled with unrest in recent years as many residents angered by illegal immigration – mostly from nearby Comoros and Madagascar – and inflation.
Illegal immigration has increased Mayotte’s population by an estimated 100,000 in the past decade, and the area has become a stronghold for the far-right National Rally.
France’s acting Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau of the conservative Republican Party said at a news conference in Mayotte that the early warning system had worked “perfectly” but that many of the undocumented people had not arrived at designated emergency shelters.
Other officials said undocumented migrants may have been afraid to go to shelters for fear of being arrested.
Left-wing politicians have pointed the finger at the government’s neglect of Mayotte and its failure to prepare for natural disasters linked to climate change.
Meanwhile, the French Interior Ministry announced that a curfew will come into force on Tuesday evening from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. local time.
