Paris:
Residents of the French territory of Mayotte braced themselves on Saturday for a storm expected to bring strong winds and heavy rain, less than a month after the Indian Ocean archipelago was devastated by a deadly cyclone.
Mayotte was placed under a red weather warning from 7pm GMT on Saturday ahead of the passage of Cyclone Dikeledi to the south of the area.
Authorities called for “extreme vigilance” following the devastation caused by Cyclone Chido in mid-December.
Meteo-France predicted “significant rain and windy conditions” and said very heavy rain could cause flooding.
Residents were advised to seek shelter and stock up on food and water.
The storm is expected to reach the northeastern coast of Madagascar on Saturday evening before forecast to leave the coast of southern Mayotte on Sunday.
“Nothing is left to chance,” Manuel Valls, France’s new Minister for Overseas Territories, told AFP, citing forecasts of “heavy and persistent rain” and wind speeds of up to 110 kilometers per hour.
The most devastating cyclone to hit France’s poorest department in 90 years caused massive damage in December, killing at least 39 people and injuring more than 5,600.
“We must seriously prepare for the possibility of a close passage of the cyclone,” the Mayotte prefecture said on X.
Prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville, the highest-ranking Paris-appointed official in the territory, said Mayotte would be placed on red weather alert from 7pm GMT on Saturday.
“I have decided to advance this red alert to 10 p.m. so that everyone can take shelter, lock themselves in and take care of the people close to you, your children and your families,” Bieuville said on television.
Messages in French and two regional languages were broadcast on radio and television to warn the population.
Bieuville told reporters earlier Saturday that the cyclone was expected to pass within 110 kilometers (70 miles) of the archipelago’s southern coast.
“We even have systems that tell us 75 kilometers. So we have something that is going to hit Mayotte very hard,” he said.
‘Very concerned’
However, forecasters expect the cyclone to weaken “to strong tropical storm stage” on Saturday night, before moving off the coast of southern Mayotte during the day on Sunday.
More than 4,000 men have been mobilized, including members of the police and army, the Interior Ministry said.
The prefect has asked mayors to reopen shelters such as schools and gymnasiums that housed around 15,000 people in December.
He also ordered the deployment of firefighters and other troops to “extremely vulnerable” slums in Mamoudzou and elsewhere.
Potential mudslides posed “a major risk”, the prefect said.
“Chido was a dry cyclone, with very little rain,” he added.
“This tropical storm is a wet event, we’re going to get a lot of rain.”
The population of Mayotte is officially 320,000, but an additional 100,000 to 200,000 undocumented immigrants are estimated to live in slums destroyed by the cyclone in December.
In Mamoudzou, Camelia Petre, 35, said she would take shelter in her house, which “held out during Chido.”
She told AFP she would “take in friends and colleagues who have lost their homes.”
She was “very concerned about the vulnerable population,” she added.
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