Nearly 1,000 people may have died after Cyclone Chido hit the French archipelago of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, located between Madagascar and the coast of Mozambique, Mayotte Prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville said.
“I think there are some several hundred dead, maybe we will get close to a thousand, even thousands … given the violence of this event,” Bieuville was quoted by Sky News as saying.
The prefect said it was “extremely difficult” to establish an exact number of victims at the moment.
The powerful cyclone, packing winds of more than 124 miles per hour, also lashed the islands of Comoros, Madagascar, and Mozambique.
