Mayotte: ‘It’s like a bomb went off, but it went off everywhere’, a resident says

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00:00Homes flattened. Walls blown apart. Roofs that are no longer.

00:05Everything that was once inside now sprinkled on the ground amidst the rubble.

00:09In the Laboratoire neighborhood of Mayotte, little is left standing.

00:13Here we are now in what was the dining room.

00:17The kitchen was here. You can see the sink was here.

00:23In Sigourney, in central Mayotte, the devastation is also everywhere you look.

00:28Across the Indian Ocean island, the landscapes bear the signs of Cyclone Chido.

00:32The worst storm the French department has weathered in nearly a century.

00:36Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble and collapsed shacks.

00:40Hillsides have been shaved of their trees and houses.

00:43Even many cement buildings did not withstand the cyclone.

00:46By phone, France 24 spoke to a restaurant owner who said her establishment is now gone.

00:51And worse, three of her employees are among the missing and may be dead.

00:56It's like a bomb went off, but it went off everywhere.

00:59I live in an apartment complex with three stories.

01:02It's a sturdy build and the third level has been pulverized.

01:06The roof's gone. There are holes everywhere.

01:12In France's poorest overseas territory, many of the homes were makeshift structures,

01:16unable to withstand the over 200 kilometer per hour winds.

01:21In the outskirts of Mamouzou, such shanty towns abound.

01:24It's thought that around 100,000 people were living in such makeshift shacks.

01:29As rescue workers from mainland France rush to the Indian Ocean islands,

01:33and as those already there search through the rubble, fears mount about the death toll.

01:38The prefect says that hundreds, even thousands, are feared dead.

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