French territory Mayotte hit by tropical storm weeks after deadly Cyclone Chido

The French territory of Mayotte was battered by another tropical storm on Sunday, just weeks after the worst cyclone to hit the islands in nearly a century caused widespread devastation in December.

Mayotte issued a red alert and people were ordered to stay in their homes or find a solid shelter and store food and water, as Tropical Storm Dikeledi brought heavy rains and strong winds to once again pound France’s poorest department.

Mayotte, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa, had only just begun the process of rebuilding after the devastation of Cyclone Chido last month, which killed at least 39 people and injured more than 5,000 others.

200 people are still missing after the storm barrelled into the islands on 14 December.

Three people died in nearby Madagascar after Dikeledi made landfall there as a cyclone on Saturday, the country's National Office for Risk and Disaster Management said.

Parts of northern Madagascar were also placed under red alert.

Dikeledi had weakened to a tropical storm by the time it reached Mayotte on Sunday, French meteorological service Météo-France said.

The centre of the storm passed about 100 kilometres south of Mayotte, Météo said, unlike Chido which hit Mayotte head on.

But Météo-France warned Dikeledi could strengthen into a cyclone again, while authorities in Mayotte said there was a high danger of flooding and landslides across the islands and issued the red alert on Saturday night.

That alert remained in place for Sunday and civilians were forbidden from being outside until it was lifted, said the Mayotte Prefecture, the French government department that runs the territory.

"The danger to the population persists," the prefecture said on its official Facebook page.

It said the weather would be calm at one point on Sunday but would become violent again later in the day.

Mayotte was also again opening cyclone shelters at schools and community centres for those in need, the prefecture said.

The international airport, which was heavily damaged by Chido, was closed again until further notice.

Officials said they were taking no chances after the devastation caused by Chido, which prompted an angry reaction by Mayotte residents who vented their frustration at French President Emmanuel Macron when he visited days after the disaster.

Mayotte's people have previously accused the French government of neglecting them and the territory, which is the poorest in the European Union.

The French Interior Ministry said emergency personnel and security forces had been mobilised for Dikeledi's arrival, with much of the focus on the precarious shantytowns around the capital, Mamoudzou.

Many who had lost their houses in Chido still had no proper shelter when Dikeledi struck.

National TV station Mayotte la 1ère said that the southern village of Mbouini, one of the few in Mayotte spared by Chido, had been flooded and almost totally destroyed by Dikeledi.

Mayotte la 1ère broadcast video of the residents of Mbouini escaping in wooden canoes as their homes were submerged under flood water.

Mayotte is a densely populated territory of around 320,000 people.

Another 100,000 undocumented migrants from nearby Comoros and elsewhere are also believed to live on the islands, which are a draw for people from poorer countries because of the French welfare system.

Chido was the worst cyclone to hit Mayotte in 90 years, authorities said.

While 39 deaths have been confirmed, French Prime Minister François Bayrou warned on a visit to the islands two weeks ago that the final death toll could be several hundred.

Authorities have faced challenges in recording the deaths and injuries from Chido because many of those affected were undocumented migrants, and also because of the Muslim practice of burying people within 24 hours of them dying.

November to April is cyclone season in the southwestern Indian Ocean, and the region has been pummelled by a series of strong ones in recent years.

The worst was Cyclone Idai in 2019, which killed more than 1,500 people in Madagascar, Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe and affected more than three million people.