France rushes help to Mayotte, where hundreds or even thousands died in Cyclone Chido

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — France was rushing help by ship and military aircraft to its poor overseas territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean on Monday after the island was shattered by its worst storm in nearly a century.

Authorities in Mayotte fear hundreds and possibly thousands of people have died in Cyclone Chido, although the official death toll on Monday morning stood at 14. Rescue teams and medical personnel have been sent to the island off the east coast of Africa from France and from the nearby French territory of Reunion, as well as tons of supplies.

French television station TF1 reported Monday morning that Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau had arrived in Mamoudzou, the capital of Mayotte.

“It will take days and days to establish the human toll,” he told French media.

French authorities said more than 800 more personnel were expected to arrive in the coming days as rescuers comb through the devastation caused by Chido when it hit the densely populated archipelago of around 300,000 people on Saturday.

Mayotte Prefect François-Xavier Bieuville, the top French government official in Mayotte, told local TV station Mayotte la 1ere on Sunday that the death toll was several hundred people and could even be in the thousands.

He said Mayotte’s poor slums of metal shacks and other informal structures had suffered terrible damage and authorities were struggling to get an accurate count of the dead and injured after the worst cyclone to hit Mayotte since the 1930s.

Entire neighborhoods have been flattened, while public infrastructure like the main airport and hospital have been badly damaged and the electricity supply has been knocked out, French authorities said. The damage to the airport control tower means only military aircraft can fly into Mayotte, complicating the response.

Mayotte is France’s poorest department and is regarded as the poorest territory in the European Union, but it is a target for economic migration from even poorer countries like nearby Comoros and even Somalia because of a better standard of living and the French welfare system.

Bieuville, the Mayotte prefect, said it would be extremely hard to count all the dead and many might never be recorded, partly due to the Muslim tradition of burying people within 24 hours of their deaths and also because of many undocumented migrants living on the island.

Chido ripped through the southwestern Indian Ocean on Friday and Saturday, also affecting the nearby islands of Comoros and Madagascar. Mayotte was directly in the cyclone’s path, though, and took the brunt. Chido brought winds in excess of 220 kph (136 mph), according to the French weather service, making it a category 4 cyclone, the second strongest on the scale.

It made landfall in Mozambique on the African mainland late Sunday, where authorities and aid agencies have said more than 2 million people may be impacted in another poor country where health facilities are already limited. Mozambique media reported three people had died in the north of the country where the cyclone made landfall, but said that was a very early toll.

Further inland, Malawi and Zimbabwe have also made preparations for possible evacuations because of flooding as Chido continues its eastern trajectory, although the cyclone has weakened as it passes over land.

December through to March is cyclone season in the southwestern Indian Ocean and southern Africa has been pummeled by a series of strong ones in recent years. Cyclone Idai in 2019 killed more than 1,300 people, mostly in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Cyclone Freddy left more than 1,000 dead across several countries in the Indian Ocean and southern Africa last year.

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This photo provided Sunday Dec.15, 2024 by the French Army shows soldiers patrolling in a military truck in the French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, after Cyclone Chido caused extensive damage with reports of several fatalities. (Etat Major des Armées via AP)

This photo provided Sunday Dec.15, 2024 by the French Army shows a soldier looking at damages in the French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, after Cyclone Chido caused extensive damage with reports of several fatalities. (Etat Major des Armées via AP)

This photo provided Sunday Dec.15, 2024 by the French Army shows palm tress during strong winds in the French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, after Cyclone Chido caused extensive damage with reports of several fatalities, Saturday Dec.14, 2024. (Etat Major des Armées via AP)

This undated photo provided by NGO Medecins du Monde on Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024, shows a devastated hill on the French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, after Cyclone Chido caused extensive damage with reports of several fatalities. (Medecins du Monde via AP)

This photo provided Sunday Dec.15, 2024 by the French Army shows soldiers patrolling in the French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, after Cyclone Chido caused extensive damage with reports of several fatalities. (Etat Major des Armées via AP)

This photo provided Sunday Dec.15, 2024 by the French Army shows soldiers removing fallen trees in the French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, after Cyclone Chido caused extensive damage with reports of several fatalities. (Etat Major des Armées via AP)

This photo provided Sunday Dec.15, 2024 by the French Army shows soldiers at work to restore a building in the French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, after Cyclone Chido caused extensive damage with reports of several fatalities, Saturday Dec.14, 2024. (Etat Major des Armées via AP)

This image taken from video released by the Gendarmerie Nationale, shows massive damage from Cyclone Chido in the French territory of Mayotte, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024. (Gendarmerie Nationale via AP)

This image taken from video released by the Gendarmerie Nationale, shows massive damage from Cyclone Chido in the French territory of Mayotte, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024. (Gendarmerie Nationale via AP)

This photo provided Sunday Dec.15, 2024 by the French Army shows soldiers loading relief for the island of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean, after Cyclone Chido caused extensive damage with reports of several fatalities, Saturday Dec.14, 2024 in Orleans, central France. (Laure-Anne Maucorps/ Etat Major des Armées via AP)

This photo provided Sunday Dec.15, 2024 by the Civil Security shows soldiers and rescue workers clearing a street in the French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, after Cyclone Chido caused extensive damage with reports of several fatalities, Saturday Dec.14, 2024. (UIISC7/Securite civile via AP)

This photo provided Sunday Dec.15, 2024 by the Civil Security shows rescue workers clearing an area in the French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, after Cyclone Chido caused extensive damage with reports of several fatalities, Saturday Dec.14, 2024. (UIISC7/Securite civile via AP)

Palestinian medics said Monday an Israeli strike killed at least 10 people, including a family of four, in Gaza City overnight.

This comes as mourners gathered for the funeral of a Palestinian journalist working for Al Jazeera who was killed in a strike on a point for Gaza’s civil defense agency Sunday.

The Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7 last year when Hamas militants stormed southern Israel, killing some 1, 200 people and taking another 250 hostage. Israel responded with heavy bombardment and a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip, leaving nearly 45,000 Palestinians dead, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Meanwhile, a UK-based war monitor says Israeli airstrikes early Monday hit missile warehouses in Syria and called it the “most violent strikes” since 2012.

Israel has been pounding what it says are military sites in Syria after the dramatic collapse of President Bashar Assad’s rule, wiping out air defenses and most of the arsenal of the former Syrian army. Israeli troops have also seized a border buffer zone, sparking condemnation, with critics accusing Israel of violating the 1974 ceasefire and possibly exploiting the chaos in Syria for a land grab.

The Assad family’s rule, which lasted more than half a century, collapsed just over a week ago following a stunning rebel advance. This has renewed fears of regional instability as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza shows no signs of halting and hostilities between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah continue despite a ceasefire.

The new Syrian administration, led by the former insurgents who toppled Assad, has complained to the U.N. Security Council about the Israeli bombardment and incursions into Syrian territory in the Golan Heights. However, it has also said it does not want a military confrontation with Israel.

Here is the latest:

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike killed at least 10 people, including a family of four, in Gaza City overnight, Palestinian medics said Monday, as Israel pursued its 14-month war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

The strike late Sunday hit a house in Gaza City’s eastern Shijaiyah neighborhood, according to the Health Ministry’s ambulance and emergency service. Rescuers recovered the bodies of 10 people from under the rubble, including those of two parents and their two children, it said.

DAMASCUS, Syria — The U.S. embassy in Damascus advised Americans to leave Syria, saying the security situation there continues to be volatile and unpredictable with armed conflict and “terrorism throughout the country."

The embassy, which has been closed since 2012, posted a statement on X, warning U.S. citizens who are unable to leave the country to prepare “contingency plans for emergency situations.” It didn't give further details.

The statement also said that the U.S. government is unable to provide any routine or emergency consular services to U.S. citizens and those who need “emergency assistance to depart should contact the U.S. Embassy in the country they plan to enter.”

Sleeper cells of the Islamic State group have claimed responsibility for deadly attacks over the past months in different parts of Syria. Despite their defeat in March 2019, the extremists still pose a threat in the war-torn country.

DAMASCUS, Syria — The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, reported early Monday that Israeli airstrikes pounded missile warehouses and other former Syrian army sites along Syria’s coast in the “most violent strikes in the Syrian coast region since the beginning of the (Israeli) strikes in 2012.”

The Israeli military declined to comment on the strikes.

The observatory said that “violent explosions” were heard in the coastal city of Tartous “as a result of the successive strikes and the flying of ground-to-ground missiles from the warehouses.”

FILE - Israeli soldiers cross the security fence moving towards the so-called Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights from Syria, in the town of Majdal Shams, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File )

An Israeli bulldozer maneuvers on the buffer zone near the so-called Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria, viewed from the town of Majdal Shams, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

An Israeli armoured vehicle crosses the security fence moving towards the so-called Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria, in the town of Majdal Shams, Sunday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)