Cyclone Chido kills 34 in Mozambique after battering Mayotte

At least 34 people have been killed in Mozambique by Cyclone Chido, authorities said on Tuesday, after the storm tore through the French island of Mayotte days earlier.

Mozambique's National Institute of Risk and Disaster Management said more than 300 others had been injured by Chido while nearly 23,600 homes and 170 fishing boats had been destroyed.

Overall, more than 175,000 people in Mozambique were affected by the storm, it said.

Chido made landfall on Cabo Delgado province on Sunday, where it claimed 28 lives, before claiming six more in Nampula province and Niassa, further inland.

Rescue crews are still working through the heavily damaged areas.

Mayotte imposes curfew

At the same time, authorities on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte imposed a curfew on Tuesday.

Earlier, officials had compared Chido's impact on the island to that of a nuclear war.

Thus far, the official death toll in Mayotte is 21, but authorities and rescue services have warned that the final count could be in the hundreds or even thousands. The curfew begins at 10 pm local time, and has been put in place to prevent looting, the Interior Ministry said.

Mayotte is one of several islands around the world that are part of France and ruled from Paris.

es/zc (AFP, Reuters)