While Mayotte is facing the most severe drought in 26 years, the situation “is monitored on a day-to-day basis by a crisis unit”, assures Christophe Béchu, guest on 8:30 am Franceinfo, on Tuesday.
The Minister of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, Christophe Béchu, recognized Tuesday September 26 on franceinfo that the situation in Mayotte is “dramatic”. The 101st department of France is currently facing a major drought, its most significant since 1997. In this context, a deputy for the territory, Mansour Kamardine (Les Républicains), asked the State on Monday September 25 for the immediate triggering of the Orsec emergency plan.
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“The rainy season, we hope from the month of November, but we are here for weeks which are still very complicated”, admits Christophe Béchu. Faced with this water crisis, the government is taking action, he says. “We are responding to the emergency: millions of bottles are being transported to ensure that we can support what we call ‘water towers’, specific devices.”
A desalination plant under construction
That’s not all: the situation “is monitored on a day-to-day basis by a crisis unit, both at the Ministry of Overseas Territories and that of Ecological Transition”. On the other hand, the “director of water and biodiversity” of his ministry “is on site, to be alongside the teams there and alongside experts so that once the crisis is over, we are able to undertake massive work”. He cites in particular the construction of a seawater desalination plant.
According to him, “we are faced with three difficulties” in Mayotte. “First, an organizational difficulty. We have to face things head-on. Competence [de l’eau] as it was exercised, including by local elected officials on the island, did not meet the needs”he assures. “Secondly”There is “the migration crisis”because “the installations, when they were made, were not designed imagining that we would have almost half of the population who would be irregular.”
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Third difficulty, “the climatic situation, with a rainy season which has not sufficiently recharged the water tables, which has not sufficiently recharged the reservoirs and which poses this difficulty for us today”. On site, the hill reserves are in fact “dried up”at present.