MAMOUDZOU, Mayotte (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron arrived Thursday in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte to survey Cyclone Chido’s destruction and was immediately confronted with a first-hand account of devastation across the French territory.
“Mayotte is demolished,” Assane Haloi, a security agent, told Macron after he stepped off the plane.
Macron had been moving along in a line of people greeting him when Haloi grasped his hand and spoke for a minute about the harrowing conditions the islands faced without bare essentials since Saturday when the strongest cyclone in nearly a century ripped through the French territory off the coast of Africa.
“We are without water, without electricity, there is nowhere to go because everything is demolished,” she said. “We can’t even shelter, we are all wet with our children covering ourselves with whatever we have so that we can sleep.”
Numbers of dead unknown
At least 31 people have died and more than 1,500 people were injured, more than 200 critically, French authorities said. But it’s feared hundreds or even thousands of people have died.
Macron arrived shortly after The Associated Press and other journalists from outside were able to reach Mayotte to provide accounts from survivors of the horror over the weekend when winds howled above 220 kph (136 mph) and peeled the roofs and walls from homes that collapsed around the people sheltering inside.
In the shantytown Kaweni on the outskirts of the capital Mamoudzou, a swath of hillside homes was reduced to scraps of corrugated metal, plastic, piles of bedding and clothing, and pieces of timber marking the frame where homes once stood.
“Those of us who are here are still in shock, but God let us live,” Nassirou Hamidouni said as he dug in the rubble of his former home. “We are sad. We can’t sleep because of all of the houses that have been destroyed.”
Macron took a helicopter tour of the damage and then met with patients and staff at a hospital, who described having to work around the clock.
A woman who works in the psychological unit became emotional as she described staff becoming exhausted and unable to care for patients.
“Help the hospital staff, help the hospital,” the woman, whose name was not known, pleaded. “Everyone from top to bottom is wiped out.”
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 she wiped away tears.
He sought to reassure people that tons of food, medical aid and additional rescuers arrived with him and more help was on its way in the form of water and a field hospital to be set up Friday. A navy ship brought 180 tons of aid and equipment, the French military said.
But the visit took a testy turn when Macron was criticized for being out of touch about what was happening on the ground by a man who said they had gone six days in Ouangani without water or a visit from rescue services.
The president said it took the military four days to clear the roads and get a plan in place to deliver aid.
"If you want to continue shouting to get airtime,” Macron said as he was cut off, by the man saying he didn't intend to shout. “If you are interested in my response, if not I will walk away.”
Residents have expressed agony at not knowing if loved ones were dead or missing, partly because of the hasty burials required under Muslim practice to lay the dead to rest within 24 hours.
“We’re 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 recover the buried bodies.”
Macron acknowledged that many who died haven’t been reported. He said phone services will be repaired “in the coming days” so that people can report their missing loved ones.
France’s poorest territory
Mayotte, with a population of 320,000 residents and an estimated 100,000 additional migrants, is France’s poorest territory.
It is part an archipelago located between mainland Africa’s east coast and northern Madagascar that had been a French colony. Mayotte voted to remain part of France in a 1974 referendum as the rest of the islands became the independent nation of Comoros
The cyclone devastated entire neighborhoods as many people ignored warnings, thinking the storm wouldn’t be so extreme.
Signs of the disaster and its impact were everywhere.
Streets remained swamped in puddles. Bright clothing was hung to dry on the wooden frames of homes and along the railings of a footbridge over a debris-strewn stream in the Kaweni slum. Throngs of motorbikes and cars lined up at a gas station still in service.
Families sprawled out on blankets at a school where 500 people were taking shelter. Women washed clothing in buckets of water as children played with the pieces of a giant chessboard.
Alibouna Haithouna, a displaced mother of four, was with her own mother who had been forced to leave a hospital after her son died there.
“There was a tragedy. We lost my brother. We are here," Haithouna said. “My brother’s body, we haven’t been able to get it from the hospital because there is a lot of paperwork to do and in addition to that you have to pay to recover the body.”
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Corbet reported from Paris. Associated Press journalist Masha Macpherson in Paris and Brian Melley in London contributed.
Sam Mednick, Adrienne Surprenant And Sylvie Corbet, The Associated Press