Several thousand people may have been killed, Mayotte prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville told Mayotte La 1ere, a local broadcaster, on Sunday.

Separately, French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said it could “take days and days” to establish the exact death toll as he spoke to reporters upon his arrival in Mayotte, where he is holding talks with authorities.

Cyclone Chido was a Category 4 storm that brought winds of more than 300°C According to a report from Météo-France, the country’s weather service, the island reached a top speed of 136 miles per hour. It subsequently weakened after hitting mainland Africa, the service added. Amid the rubble, the only sounds heard in footage from the accident scene are the calls of birds soaring over debris littering the ground. Wooden fishing boats of various sizes have washed up on the beaches, and the island ferry Karihani lies stranded, surrounded by debris, at an awkward angle on the shore.

Electricity poles were also ripped from the side of the road and a wire was flying in the wind, whipping through the air and heavy rain.

Cyclones, also called typhoons and hurricanes, are enormous heat engines of wind and rain that feed on warm seawater and moist air.

All three are storm systems with wind speeds of more than 75 mph (120 km/h), but the name depends on where in the world the storm occurs. According to the US National Ocean Service, hurricanes occur in the North Atlantic and Northeast Pacific, typhoons in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean, and cyclones in the Northwest Pacific.

According to Météo-France, the cyclone season in the southwest Indian Ocean usually lasts from mid-November to the end of April.

Experts warn that climate change is worsening atmospheric impacts. A warmer atmosphere can retain more moisture, increasing the potential for warmer, wetter and more intense atmospheric river storms with greater flooding risk and costs.

In 2023, over 1,000 people died in Malawi and Mozambique after Cyclone Freddy, the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded, swept 5,000 miles across the Indian Ocean, where it hit Madagascar and Réunion before hitting mainland Africa.