(Saint-Denis de la Réunion) Reunion was confined on Sunday before the arrival of tropical cyclone Belal, which could “mark the history” of the French island in the Indian Ocean with “devastating” winds and numerous river overflows.
“Be careful, stay home. The State is mobilized at your side,” President Emmanuel Macron wrote to the island’s approximately 870,000 inhabitants in a message posted on X.
The island will go on Monday at 6 a.m. (9 p.m. Eastern time) on purple alert, synonymous with “imminent danger,” the prefecture announced late in the evening.
From this moment, the strict confinement of the population will be extended to the emergency and security services, which will no longer be able to circulate until further notice.
Already, when the hurricane red alert was triggered, at 8 p.m. local time on Sunday (11 a.m. Eastern time), the streets of several large cities on the island were almost deserted.
Many balconies as well as gardens had been emptied of any object that could be taken away or broken, and traders had removed their removable signs, noted an AFP correspondent.
The population of Reunion Island was called upon to confine themselves to a safe place until Tuesday morning.
“A tough test faces us,” said the president of the region Huguette Bello on X.
The authorities fear that Belal, which was located at the beginning of the afternoon a little more than 200 kilometers northwest of Reunion, will become an “intense tropical cyclone” on Monday as it passes over the island or beyond. immediate proximity.
Its winds could be “devastating” according to Météo France, referring to a cyclone “which could mark the history” of Reunion Island.
Reunion has not been hit by an intense cyclone for ten years and the passage of Bejisa in the first days of 2014.
The representative of the State on the island, the prefect Jérôme Filippini, had already called on the population the day before to “take seriously, even very seriously, what is happening”, and to “stock up water and food.
“We are not going to play heroes, we were told to stay at home, we are staying at home,” says Jules Dafreville, a resident of Saint-Denis, the capital of Reunion.
According to Météo France, winds from Belal could exceed 200 km/h on the coast and 250 km/h or more “in the heights of the island. “Destructive and devastating winds which can cause great damage,” estimated forecaster Sébastien Langlade.
The prefecture also warned of “flooding of the island’s rivers with sometimes exceptional flow rates”.
Roland-Garros international airport, in the town of Sainte-Marie (north), closed at 7 a.m. (Eastern time).
Six living centers have been set up for patients requiring equipment for their care, in addition to the 142 accommodation centers deployed throughout the region to accommodate people in precarious circumstances or those living on the banks of ravines or rivers in case of flooding, according to the authorities.