Eva van Dam
Reporting from Paris

image source, Amalia Mazon

“We didn’t expect it to be so violent. We barricaded ourselves at home and waited for it to pass. We were very scared when we saw the water rising and entering our house.”

Amalia Mazon, a 27-year-old midwife from Brussels, has been working at the island’s central hospital for four months and was there when Cyclone Chido made landfall.

“The situation is quite chaotic. We’re fine; “We’re a bit flooded, but we have a solid house,” she tells the BBC.

“We’re more concerned with what comes next. We have no electricity, no cell phone reception and there is still rubble everywhere.”

Amalia is particularly concerned about access to drinking water and food.

“The water here is completely yellow. It’s useless to us,” she says.

With communications networks destroyed, people are relying on word of mouth to find clean water collection points, she says.

“Honestly, there’s nothing here locally – no resources at all. There are three people trying to take care of hundreds of people. We feel completely abandoned and don’t even know if help is coming. We have no news; We have no idea…”