Photos: Cyclone batters France's Mayotte, hundreds feared dead

French gendarmes on an armoured vehicle Berliet VXB-170 (or VBRG) along a road scattered with debris during a rescue and emergency operation at an undisclosed location on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte after cyclone Chido hit the archipelago. Rescuers were racing against time Monday to reach survivors after the cyclone hit the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, laying to waste the territory's many shantytowns.

Cyclone Chido caused major damage to Mayotte's airport and cut off electricity, water and communication links when it barrelled down on France's poorest territory on Saturday.

Prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville expects the final death toll will reach "close to a thousand or even several thousand", he told broadcaster Mayotte la Premiere.

The mayor of Mayotte's capital Mamoudzou, Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, told AFP the storm "spared nothing". "The hospital is hit, the schools are hit. Houses are totally devastated," he said.

France's Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau will travel to Mayotte on Monday, his office said, with 160 soldiers and firefighters to reinforce the 110 already deployed.

Chido was packing winds of at least 226 kilometres (140 miles) per hour when it slammed into Mayotte, which lies to the east of Mozambique. At least a third of the territory's 320,000 residents live in shantytowns, where homes with sheet-metal roofs were flattened by the storm.