Mayotte hit by floods and landslides from second storm
The French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte has been hit by heavy rains, a month after Cyclone Chido struck, causing floods and landslides that devastated large parts of the island and killed dozens of people.
The archipelago was put on the highest alert as another typhoon passed through on Sunday morning. Authorities have warned of violent winds, flash floods and landslides.
Videos on social media showed downed power lines and some flooding. The southern village of Mbouini, the only settlement untouched by Cyclone Chido, was submerged in water, local TV reported.
The latest storm, Dikeledi, made landfall in northern Madagascar on Saturday, killing at least three people.
The storm passed about 100 km (62 miles) south of Mayotte around 09:00 GMT on Sunday, according to forecaster Météo-France.
“It is starting to rain extremely heavily,” Francois-Xavier Beauville, the prefect of Mayotte, told French news channel BFMTV.
He said they were causing the first flooding “and relatively significant landslides” across the region.
The prefect said the island was likely to remain on red alert until Monday evening, as heavy rains were expected to continue even after the storm passed.
At least 14,500 people have taken shelter in emergency shelters set up to protect them from the storm, BFMTV reports.
Météo-France reported that as of Sunday afternoon, the storm was moving away from Mayotte. The system is expected to gradually intensify into tropical cyclone status over the next 24 hours as it approaches the coast of Mozambique.
The forecaster said the current forecast does not predict landslides in Mozambique, but the Nampula area is still expected to experience “very bad conditions”.
Mozambique is also recovering from Cyclone Chido, which killed 120 people in the country.
In Mayotte, one of the poorest parts of France, many residents live in shanty towns.
Officially the archipelago has 320,000 inhabitants, but authorities estimate that around 100,000 to 200,000 undocumented migrants may also be living there.
On December 14, Cyclone Chido became the worst storm to hit Mayotte in 90 years, producing winds of up to 260 km/h (160 mph) and leveling areas where people lived in huts with metal roofs. Lived in.
Initial reports said several hundred people were killed, but the death toll was later reduced to 39.
