One dead as storm hits French Indian Ocean island

SAINT-DENIS DE LA REUNION: Hundreds of thousands of people on France´s Indian Ocean island of Reunion hunkered down in their homes under a strict lockdown on Monday as a devastating storm that has already left one dead ripped along its north coast.

Cyclone Belal hit Reunion, one of France´s overseas territories that span the globe from the Caribbean to the Pacific, moving in from the northwest packing “extreme winds”, according to France´s national weather service, Meteo-France. “The eye of the storm is passing along the northern and northeastern coast this afternoon,” it said in its latest public bulletin.