Important Takeaways:
- Three days after Cyclone Chido tore through the French overseas territory off East Africa, the hospital’s emergency department has not seen large numbers of injured, leading them to fear the worst, Naouelle Bouabbas said.
- “The fact that we don’t see that many injured from the cyclone when everything has collapsed makes us think that all these people are still buried and are dead,” she told Reuters in a video call from the islands.
- “We expect thousands, tens of thousands would not surprise me,” said Bouabbas, when asked about a possible death toll, adding there was no infrastructure in place yet to remove people from the rubble.
- Authorities have said hundreds or even thousands could have died, but only 22 deaths had been confirmed on Tuesday morning
- The Red Cross said on Tuesday that about 100,000 people were unaccounted for, including about 200 of its volunteers, after the cyclone battered the islands with 200 kph (124 mph) winds in the worst storm in 90 years.
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Important Takeaways:
- Thousands are feared dead after an island in the Indian Ocean was hit by a devastating cyclone which carried 163mph winds and left a trail of destruction likened to the aftermath of a nuclear war.
- Cyclone Chido hit Mayotte, France’s poorest region, over the weekend, and has been considered the most violent that the island has experienced in almost a century.
- Chido’s dizzying winds tore through the archipelago and left buildings heavily damaged, vehicles destroyed, and the main airport and hospital completely wrecked.
- Mayotte Prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville told local TV: ‘I think there are some several hundred dead, maybe we’ll get close to a thousand, even thousands… given the violence of this event.’
- However, he said it was currently ‘extremely difficult’ to get an exact number.
- The Interior Ministry echoed these concerns, saying it could not confirm any figures at this stage, as a Mayotte local explained: ‘What we are experiencing is a tragedy, it feels like the day after a nuclear war. I saw an entire neighborhood disappear.’
- French civil security spokesperson Alexandre Jouassard told the France 2 news channel: ‘The next minutes and hours are very important.
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