France to impose nighttime curfew on 'devastated' Mayotte

Destroyed housing in Combani, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, after the cyclone Chido hit the archipelago. [Photo, AFP]

France from Tuesday evening will impose a nighttime curfew on the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte, after the French overseas territory was devastated by a cyclone feared to have killed hundreds, the interior ministry said.

According to the latest official toll, 21 people are confirmed to have been killed by Cyclone Chido when it barrelled into the island and its surrounding archipelago on Sunday.

But authorities fear that hundreds, and possibly even thousands, were killed with the the true scale of the toll only set to be clear in the next days when rubble is cleared and roads unblocked.

The curfew from 10:00 pm to 4:00 am local time (1900 GMT to 0100 GMT) is being put in place as a security measure to prevent looting, the interior ministry said.

Mayotte is one of several French overseas territories that span the globe from the Caribbean to the Pacific via the Indian Ocean, and are integral parts of France which are ruled from Paris.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who chaired a crisis meeting on Monday night, has described the situation as a "tragedy" and promised to visit Mayotte in the coming days.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who on Monday was the first top Paris official to visit the island after the cyclone, said that Mayotte has been "completely devastated", with 70 percent of inhabitants affected.

"The toll will be heavy, too heavy," Retailleau warned.

He announced the arrival "in the coming days" of 400 additional gendarmes to reinforce the 1,600 gendarmes and police officers present on the archipelago, while specifying that there had "not really been any looting" so far.

Cyclone Chido is the latest in a string of storms worldwide fuelled by climate change, according to experts.

Mayotte is France's poorest region, with an estimated one third of the population living in shantytowns whose flimsy sheet metal-roofed homes offered scant protection against the storm.