Mayotte Islands hit by new tropical storm after devastating cyclone

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — The French territory of Mayotte was hit by a new tropical storm on Sunday, just weeks after the worst cyclone to hit the islands in almost a century devastated entire neighborhoods and towns and forced authorities to make a huge recovery effort.

Mayotte residents were ordered to stay indoors or seek safe shelter if they did not have it, and to stock up on food and water, as Tropical Storm Dikeledi brought torrential rain and strong winds to hit the poorest department of Mayotte again. France.

Mayotte, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa, had only just begun the rebuilding process after the devastation of Cyclone Chido last month, which killed at least 39 people, left more than 200 missing and injured more than 5,000 when it devastated the country on December 14.

Dikeledi passed over the nearby island of Madagascar as a cyclone on Saturday, but had weakened to a tropical storm by the time it reached Mayotte on Sunday, the French weather service Meteo-France said. The center of the storm would pass about 100 kilometers south of Mayotte, he said. Chido had hit Mayotte head-on.

Meteo-France warned that Dikeledi could strengthen again into a cyclone, while authorities in Mayotte said there was a high danger of flooding and landslides and issued a red alert for the islands on Saturday night. That alert would remain in effect for Sunday and civilians were prohibited from being outdoors until the alert was lifted, said the Prefecture of Mayotte, the French government department that administers the territory.

“The danger to the population persists,” the prefecture said in a series of alerts on its official Facebook page. He indicated the weather would be calm at one point on Sunday, but would become violent again later in the day.

Mayotte also reopened cyclone shelters in schools and community centers for those in need, according to the prefecture. The international airport, severely damaged by Chido, closed again until further notice, it said.

Officials said they were not taking any chances after the Chido devastation, which also sparked outrage from Mayotte residents who vented their frustrations against French President Emmanuel Macron when he visited days after the disaster. Mayotte residents have previously accused the French government of neglecting them and the territory, which is the poorest in the European Union.

The French Interior Ministry said more than 4,000 emergency personnel and security forces had been mobilized for Dikeledi’s arrival, with much of the focus being on the precarious slums around the capital, Mamoudzou. and other areas, which were largely destroyed by Chido.

National television station Mayotte la 1ère said the southern village of Mbouini, one of the few in Mayotte that Chido had spared, had been flooded and almost completely destroyed by Dikeledi. Mayotte la 1ère broadcast video of Mbouini residents escaping in wooden canoes as their homes were submerged under flood water.

Mayotte is a densely populated territory of around 320,000 people. Another 100,000 undocumented migrants from nearby Comoros and elsewhere are also believed to live on the islands, which are a draw for people from poorer countries because of the French welfare system.

Chido was the worst cyclone to hit Mayotte in 90 years, officials said. While 39 deaths have been confirmed, French Prime Minister François Bayrou warned during a visit to the islands two weeks ago that the final death toll could be several hundred. Authorities have faced challenges in recording Chido deaths and injuries because many of those affected were undocumented migrants, and also because of the Muslim practice of burying people within 24 hours of their death.

After hitting Mayotte, Chido made landfall on the African continent, killing more than 100 people in Mozambique and Malawi. Forecasters expect Dikeledi to turn south and then east, heading back towards Madagascar and out to sea after passing Mayotte.

November to April is cyclone season in the southwestern Indian Ocean, and the region has been hit by a series of strong ones in recent years. The worst was Cyclone Idai in 2019, which killed more than 1,500 people in Madagascar, Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe and affected more than 3 million people.