Zinedine was in his modest wood-and-corrugated-iron home with eight of his relatives on the night Cyclone Chido struck the French Indian Ocean colony of Mayotte.
The authorities had warned Zinedine about the cyclone, but he didn’t take it seriously.
“I assumed it would just be a little rain, like in years past when they said there might be a cyclone approaching. Thus, we remained at home.
This time, however, the island was on the verge of being struck by the largest cyclone to strike the island in nearly a century, with gusts exceeding 124 mph (200 km/h).
