Cyclone Chido brought wind speeds of more than 220km per hour, flattening areas where the poorest people lived in sheet-metal roof shacks. The French President Emmanuel Macron said he will be travelling to the French Overseas Territory in the Indian Ocean in "the coming days", as he pledged to support fellow citizens, civil servants and emergency services involved in rescue efforts. We hear from Senator Salama Ramia from Mayotte who sits in the French Senate in Paris. Also on the programme: why members of the Alawite community of ousted Syrian President Assad are fearful of the future despite assurances from the country's new rulers; and we pay tribute to Indian tabla musician Zakir Hussain who has died aged 73. (Photo: Aftermath of Cyclone Chido in Mayotte Credit: Reuters/Chafion Madi)
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Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service, coming to you live from our studios in central London.
I'm Julian Marshall and we begin today with the race to reach survivors of the French overseas territory of Mayotte, which was devastated, devastated by a cyclone on Saturday.
Situated in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Mozambique, its population of just over 300,000 make their living from agriculture and fishing, and half of them live in shanty towns in small homes with corrugated iron roofs.
Those dwellings have been destroyed by the cyclone along with health centers.
Streets have been filled with fallen trees and debris, while electricity, water and communication links have been severed.
Hundreds of people are feared dead, while survivors are in desperate need of food and water.
Three French government ministers have been in the territory to see the devastation, and President Macron says he'll visit in the coming days.
In a moment, we'll hear from a politician on Mayotte who represents the territory in the French Senate.
But first, this report from the BBC's Rachel Wright.
A woman with an orange scarf tied around her hair shouts across a car park at a man surrounded by French police.
He is Bruno Retail and he's the French interior minister because despite being nearly 8,000km away, these islands are actually part of France.
He had just arrived on the island with two other French ministers and hundreds of French troops.
The woman says a lot of people here are dying and she expects more from people in authority.
The sites that await him are apocalyptic.