Cyclone Garance barrelled across Reunion Island on Friday, killing at least two people as fierce winds left destruction across the French Indian Ocean territory, authorities said.
Winds of up to 230 kilometres per hour battered the territory of 900,000 people and the storm earlier forced the closure of the main airport on nearby Mauritius.
One woman in her 50s was probably sucked into a sewer pipe and swept away in torrential water, the local prefect said, describing the storm as “brutal and violent”.
A man was killed in an electrical fire and another person was missing, the prefecture said.
Some 180,000 households were without power and 80,000 without water; while 114,000 people had lost mobile phone coverage, authorities said
Residents posted pictures online of uprooted trees, torn-away roofs and flooded homes. Entire streets were inundated and cars washed away.
“I watched my car being overturned by the torrent, and there was nothing I could do,” said Adrien, a resident of Saint-Andre on the northeastern coast, who declined to give his last name.
‘First time I’ve been afraid’
Authorities imposed a maximum alert for several hours Friday, confining the entire population – including law enforcement and emergency services – to their homes and offices.
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That was later eased so that police and emergency services could operate but authorities maintained the order for the rest of the population to remain indoors.
Prefect Patrice Latron told reporters that Garance was fiercer than Cyclone Belal, which killed four people on Reunion Island in January 2024.
Garance landed on the island’s north and barrelled south before heading back out to sea.
While the violent gusts and torrential rain eased, heavy rain and strong winds persisted.
Residents said the force of the cyclone was frightening.
“This is the first time I’ve seen a cyclone this powerful, and also the first time I’ve been afraid,” said Vincent Clain, 45, who lives in Sainte-Marie on the northern coast.
He told AFP by telephone that the storm had uprooted trees in his garden. “I thought they would crash onto the house,” he said.
Clain, his wife, their son and dog hid in their kitchen, “the safest area of the house”.
Aline Etheve, a resident of Sainte-Suzanne on the coast, said she was worried the roof of her house would collapse after the storm destroyed her garden fence.
“I must admit I’m a little scared,” she told AFP, adding that her power and wifi access were gone.
Close to 700 people took shelter in emergency structures across the island.
‘Rare intensity’
Around 100 troops and firefighters were to be dispatched from Mayotte – a French territory nearly 1,500 kilometres (more than 930 miles) away as soon as weather conditions permit. Another 100 were to go there from mainland France.
La Reunion and Mauritius – around 225 kilometres to the northeast – had been on high alert since Wednesday.
Mauritius shut its main airport on Wednesday, while La Reunion did the same on Thursday.
France’s Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said Friday that Garance was of a “rare intensity”, while Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said armed forces stood ready to provide assistance.
In the capital Saint-Denis, residents had scrambled to stock up on essentials before the alert was raised.
Farmers dismantled greenhouses and fishermen pulled boats onto land. “It is a feeling of being powerless,” said Jean-Christophe Hoareau, a farmer.
Marie Rose Gaze, 61, who lives in Saint-Denis told AFP that she had seen “all kinds of things” blown out of a building across from her home. “Satellite dishes, clothes lines and even chunks of cement.”
At one point she feared “the whole building would come down”, she said.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)