Sustained greening of the Antarctic Peninsula observed from satellites

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"I think there will be definitely several hundred, perhaps we will come close to a thousand or even several thousand," prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville said on broadcaster Mayotte la Premiere, after the disaster largely destroyed the shantytowns in which around one-third of the archipelago's population live, as well as cutting off electricity, water and communications links.

Officials had warned earlier that it would take days to know the full toll and counted 14 killed in a provisional list, a local security source told AFP. 

Rescue workers and supplies are being rushed in by air and sea, but their efforts are likely to be hindered by damage to airports and electricity distribution in a territory where even clean drinking water was already subject to chronic shortages.

Nine people were gravely wounded and fighting for their lives in hospital, said Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, mayor of Mayotte's capital Mamoudzou, while 246 more were seriously injured.

Mayotte's 320,000 residents had been ordered into lockdown as cyclone Chido bore down on the islands around 500 kilometres (310 miles) east of Mozambique.

Its gusts of at least 226 kilometres per hour had "completely destroyed" the territory's many shantytowns, acting Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said following a crisis meeting in Paris late Saturday.

Electricity poles were hurled to the ground, trees uprooted and sheet-metal roofs and walls torn off improvised structures inhabited by at least one-third of the population.

"It will take several days" to establish the full death toll, but "we fear that it is heavy", Retailleau added.

Retailleau will travel to Mayotte on Monday, his office said, alongside 160 soldiers and firefighters to reinforce the 110 already deployed to the islands from mainland France ahead of the storm.

Medical personnel and equipment were being delivered from Sunday by air and sea, said the prefecture in La Reunion, another French Indian Ocean territory some 1,400 kilometres away on the other side of Madagascar.

"We are continuing to evaluate the needs of emergency services and the population to organise the schedule" of deployment, the prefecture said in a statement.

'Major damage'

"Everything has been swept away, everything is razed," said Mounira, a woman whose house was destroyed in the Kaweni district in Mamoudzou's east – France's largest shantytown.

More than 15,000 homes are without electricity, acting Environment Minister Agnes-Pannier Runacher has said, while telephone access is severely limited even for emergency calls.

MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/. The damage sustained by two Russian oil tankers in a storm caused a spill of oil products in the waters of the Black Sea, the Federal Agency for Sea and Inland Water Transport reported on Sunday.

"Today two tankers, Volgoneft 212 and Volgoneft 239, were damaged due to a storm in the waters of the Black Sea. There are 15 people on board of one ship and 14 people on the other. The damage caused an oil spill emergency," the agency specified.

Two rescue tugboats and two helicopters have been dispatched, the agency said.

France used ships and military aircraft to rush rescue workers and supplies to its Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte on Monday after the island group was battered by its worst cyclone in nearly a century. Authorities fear hundreds and possibly thousands of people have died.

Cyclone Chido leveled entire neighborhoods of metal shacks and other flimsy structures when it hit Mayotte, France’s poorest department, on Saturday. Entire hillside villages were reduced to a jumble of snapped trees and piles of corrugated metal and wooden frames of houses. 

Authorities used military-style vehicles to clear trees from roads so rescuers and supplies could reach those in need. The damage – including to the main airport – has left some areas still inaccessible to emergency teams, hampering authorities’ ability to assess the devastation and get basic necessities to survivors. 

French Health Minister Geneviève Darrieussecq said the official death toll stood at 14 but told France 2 television that was likely a major undercount “compared to the scale of the disaster.” 

Electricity supplies and communication lines have been knocked out to large parts of Mayotte, and authorities are concerned about a shortage of drinking water. Meanwhile, the main hospital suffered extensive damage.

People were also starting to go hungry, according to Mayotte Sen. Salama Ramia. She told BFM-TV that many people heading to shelters found dire conditions.

“There’s no water, no electricity. Hunger is starting to rise. It’s urgent that aid arrives, especially when you see children, babies, to whom we have nothing concrete to offer,” she said.

Mayotte, the poorest place in the European Union, is a densely populated archipelago of around 300,000 people, most of whom are Muslim, that sits between Madagascar and the African continent. Comprising two main islands, it has been under French administration since 1841. 

Many of its makeshift houses and roads were pummeled by Chido, which brought winds in excess of 220 kph (136 mph), according to the French weather service. It was a category 4 cyclone, the second strongest on the scale, and the worst to hit Mayotte since the 1930s, Prefect François-Xavier Bieuville said.