Thousands feared dead after Cyclone Chido hits French overseas territory Mayotte

Rescue workers were rushing Monday to reach the remote French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean after the archipelago was devastated by Cyclone Chido, the worst storm to hit the region in nearly a century.

While the official death toll stood at 14, officials in Mayotte said they feared hundreds, if not thousands of people had been killed by the storm on the densely populated territory, which is home to around 300,000, according to The Associated Press.

French authorities said entire neighborhoods — many of which consisted of poorly constructed slum-settlements — had been flattened, and public infrastructure including airports and hospitals was badly damaged, the AP reported. Damage to the airport control tower meant only military aircraft could land in Mayotte, complicating the rescue response. Electricity has also reportedly been been knocked out across the archipelago.

Rescue workers, soldiers, medical personnel and supplies have been sent from France, as well as from the nearby French territory of Reunion. Mayotte is regarded as the poorest territory that falls under the sovereignty of any European Union nation, however it still draws a significant number of economic migrants from nearby nations that are even poorer, due largely to the French state welfare system being implemented there. 

The French Red Cross told CBS News partner network BBC News that around 100,000 people live in makeshift slum dwellings on Mayotte, and that most of those had been completely destroyed by Chido.

Cyclone season in the southwestern Indian Ocean began at the start of December, and Chido hit Mayotte on Saturday as an intense tropical cyclone — the equivalent of a category-4 hurricane, the BBC reported. It made landfall on the much larger island nation of Madagascar, just south of Mayotte, late Sunday.

The BBC reported that Chido was likely intensified due to climate change. The BBC said that, while the number of annual cyclones hasn’t increased in recent decades, more of them have been more intense, likely because warmer air and seawater provides perfect conditions to fuel larger storms.