At least 34 people have been killed by Cyclone Chido in Mozambique since it made landfall on Sunday, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said on Tuesday, citing figures from the southern African country's disaster agency.
"As of 17 December 2024, a total of 174,158 people were estimated to be affected, with 34 deaths and 319 injuries," OCHA said in a statement.
Mozambique's National Institute for Risk and Disaster Management (INGD) described the situation as "heartbreaking". the BBC reportedand said the death toll will rise. An INGD spokesman told the BBC that most of the dead were hit by falling objects, such as destroyed brick walls.
Chido also destroyed or damaged 35,000 houses, affected nine schools and 10 health centers, according to preliminary reports by the Center for Humanitarian and Emergency Operations of the Southern African Development Community.
Drone footage from Mozambique's Cabo Delgado province showed flattened thatched-roof houses near the coast and personal belongings scattered under the few remaining palm trees.
Electricity and communications have also been disrupted: the state-owned electricity company Electricidade de Mozambique announced that some 200,000 customers are currently without power.
Thousands potentially dead in Mayotte
Chido made landfall in Mozambique after wreaking havoc in Mayotte, an Indian Ocean archipelago 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 territory in 90 years.
So far, 22 people have been confirmed dead and about 1,400 injured, Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, 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 sports teacher at Bouéni M'titi-Labattoir high school in the town of Dzaouzi told Reuters when asked about the fate of his students: "It is impossible to find them all.
"Many of them live in the nearby shanty town, no one can go there."
The International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) and Red Crescent Societies said the death toll was likely to be much higher, as about a third of the island's population was still not in due to poor communications.
"It's a small island with 300,000 inhabitants, and because the cyclone has disrupted electricity, internet and phone lines, about 100,000 people are still missing," IFRC communications director, Nora Peter
It may take days to discover the full extent of the destruction. At the moment, essential goods, medical and technical personnel and police arrived via the air bridge with La Reunió, the only lifeline in the territory.
"The priority today is water and food," said Mayor Soumaila. "There are people who have unfortunately died where the bodies are starting to decompose which can create a health problem."
"We don't have electricity. When night falls, there are people who take advantage of this situation."
Dr. Claudia Lodesani of Médecins Sans Frontières said restoring access to clean water was crucial to prevent the outbreak of cholera and other diseases.
"An epidemic is not inevitable, but the risk is very high," he said, saying that even before the storm, access to clean water and health services was difficult in the slums, where many live immigrants
"France will repair the hospital quickly, but the situation in the barracks is worrying," Lodesani said.
More than three quarters of Mayotte's 321,000 inhabitants live in relative poverty. According to 2021 figures from the statistics agency INSEE, Mayotte has an average annual disposable income of just over €3,000 (about CAN$4,500) per inhabitant, about eight times less than the Ille-de-France region around Paris.
Concern for undocumented immigrants
In mainland France, the disaster fueled a political dispute over immigration, the environment and France's treatment of its overseas territories.
Mayotte has been struggling with unrest in recent years with many residents angry about illegal immigration, mostly from nearby Comoros and Madagascar, and inflation.
Undocumented immigration has grown Mayotte's population by around 100,000 in the past 10 years, and the territory has become a stronghold of the far-right National Rally.
Acting French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau of the conservative Republicans told a news conference in Mayotte that the early warning system had worked "perfectly" but that many of the undocumented had not reached the shelters designated
Other officials have said undocumented migrants may have been afraid to go to shelters for fear of arrest.
Left-wing politicians have pointed the finger at what they called the Mayotte government's negligence and failure to prepare for natural disasters linked to climate change.
Meanwhile, the French interior ministry said the curfew would come into effect on Tuesday night from 10 to 4 a.m. local time.
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