French President Emmanuel Macron has arrived in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte to survey the devastation caused by Cyclone Chido across the French territory.
“Mayotte is demolished,” an airport security agent told Mr Macron as soon as he stepped of the plane.
The security agent, Assane Haloi, said small children are without water or electricity and have nowhere to go because “everything is demolished”.
“There’s no roof, there’s nothing. No water, no food, no electricity. We can’t even shelter, we are all wet with our children covering ourselves with whatever we have so that we can sleep,” she said, asking for emergency aid.
Mr Macron went on a helicopter for an aerial appraisal of the damage. He then headed to the hospital in Mamoudzou, Mayotte’s capital, to meet medical staff and patients.
Wearing a traditional Mayotte scarf on his white shirt and tie, sleeves rolled to the elbows, the French president listened to people asking for help. A member of the medical staff told him some people had not had a drink of water for 48 hours.
Some residents also expressed their agony at not knowing about those who have died or are still missing.
Mayotte politciian Estelle Youssoufa said “we’re dealing with open-air mass graves. There are no rescuers, no one has come to recover the buried bodies”.
Mr Macron acknowledged that many who died have not been reported. He said phone services will be repaired “in the coming days” so that people can report their missing loved ones.
French authorities said at least 31 people have died and more than 1,500 people were injured, more than 200 critically.
But it is feared hundreds or even thousands of people have died after the strongest cyclone in nearly a century ripped through Mayotte off the coast of Africa on Saturday.
Mr Macron was later expected to visit a destroyed neighbourhood.
Ahamadi Mohammed said Mr Macron’s visit “is a good thing because he’ll be able to see by himself the damage”.
“I think that we’ll then get significant aid to try and get the island back on its feet,” the 58-year-old said.
A navy ship was due to arrive in Mayotte on Thursday with 180 tons of aid and equipment, according to the French military.
People living in a large slum on the outskirts of Mamoudzou were some of the hardest hit from the cyclone. Many had lost their houses, some had lost friends.
Nassirou Hamidouni sheltered in his house when the cyclone hit.
His neighbour was killed when his house collapsed on him and his six children. Mr Hamidouni and others dug through the rubble to reach them.
The 28-year-old father of five is now trying to rebuild his own house, which was also destroyed.
He believes the death toll is much higher than what is officially being reported given the severity of what he lived through.
“The 30 deaths are too small for how the situation happened, it was very hard,” he said.
Mayotte, located in the Indian Ocean between mainland Africa’s east coast and northern Madagascar, is France’s poorest territory.
The cyclone devastated entire neighbourhoods as many people ignored the warnings, thinking the storm wouldn’t be so extreme.
