Hello and welcome to Newsar 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 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 shantytowns in small homes with corrugated iron roofs.

Those dwellings have been destroyed by the cyclone along with health centres. 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 Omayotte, 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 Rital, and he's the French interior minister,

because despite being nearly 8,000 kilometres 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 sights that await him are apocalyptic. Saturdays cyclone saw winds of more

than 220 kilometers per hour, the worst storm here in 90 years.

This man, John Ballos, who lives in the capital, Mamadzu, said he was surprised he wasn't among the dead.

It was the wind, the wind blowing, and I was panicked.

I screamed, we need help, we need help.

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