Posted on 12/30/2004 7:51:01 AM PST by jazzo
MALE (AFP) - At least 42 islands in the tourist paradise of the Maldives were flattened with 117 people killed and missing after tsunamis raved the low-lying atoll nation, the president said.
President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom said 75 people were killed while another 42 were confirmed missing in Sunday's devastating tidal waves that caused havoc in his nation of 1,192 coral islands.
"We were not in any way prepared to deal with this disaster," Gayoom told a special session of the national parliament. The toll could be higher as the authorities re-establish contact with far flung islands, he said on Thursday.
"Maldives may be able to build a new life from scratch with financial assistance, but dealing with the widespread personal tragedy and despair would not be easy," he said.
The tragedy struck the atoll nation of 330,000 Sunni Muslims which is already facing the prospect of extinction from sea level rise caused by global warming. Gayoom had warned that a one-meter (three foot four inch) rise in sea levels could submerge his country.
When walls of water washed over the Maldives, the nation lost all the infrastructure on 13 of its 202 inhabited islands while another 29 of the country's 85 resort islands suffered similar damage.
Each island is a single resort hotel with the geographical formation allowing the country to keep foreigners and the local Sunni Muslim population separate except in the one square mile capital island Male.
Foreigners are not allowed to overnight on islands inhabited by Maldivians and special permission is required to visit them.
Gayoom, 67, who is Asia's longest serving president in power since 1978, has already declared an emergency and put off parliamentary elections that were due Friday.
Voting has been re-scheduled for January 22, but officials said even that could be put off again as the country struggled to rebuild itself amid initial estimates that the damage was in excess of 1.5 billion dollars.
Gayoom said 9,000 people had been evacuated from damaged islands while another 12,000 were made homeless across the archipelago.
"There are shortcomings in the relief operations," he admitted but urged all Maldivians to unite in the face of the worst disaster to hit the nation and said they were also getting international help.
Officials said a total of six foreigners, three Britons, two Sri Lankans and one Indian were among those confirmed killed.
The Maldives was getting a shipment of drinking water from Britain Thursday, officials said.
Scottish Water was sending thousands of bottles in an aircraft that was flying in to pick up stranded tourists.
Perhaps the Saudis would take them in, the poor dears.
I sort of don't blame President Gayoom for spreading his global warming nonsense. He is president of an island nation whose fate is solely in God's hands.
Just as God took the mythical nation of Atlantis, He may also take the Maldives. And, neither SUVs or greenhouse gas emissions contributing to the junk science of "global warming" will have had a thing to do with.
It's a terrible and sad trgedy that has struck those nations, but using it to exploit the nonsense of global warming is just more leftist politics to try and control the rest of the world.
Failure to prepare on your part does NOT constitute a crisis on our part!
But they will cheerfully accept all aid offers.
Take a look at this story!
Well... and the Tsunami was apparently caused by evil American corporations spearheaded by Bush.
This is it! We should move all the terrorists from Gitmo, Iraq, and the rest of the world here. This will definitely do the job. Let allah save them. Global warming could be very useful for fighting terrorism.
Hey! Don't get mad at me. I'm trying to "bridge the gap" with Lefties for all of us. I think I've found it.
Wiped the shrubbery right off, didn't it? I guess we'd call that "razed."
What the heck are we worrying about a Sunnie Muslim nation for? They are the enemy.
Actually we should help them. Let's show them the moral superiority of Western civilization!
Midway is a secure government facility.
It looked like heaven, didn't it?
Very pretty! I think I recognize that last photo from a calendar!
<img src="http://www.fourseasons.com/image_library/MAL/MAL_152_320x400_web-large.jpg">
<img src="http://www.fourseasons.com/image_library/MAL/MAL_152_320x400_web-large.jpg">
<img src="http://www.fourseasons.com/image_library/MAL/MAL_115_320x400_web-large.jpg">
<img src="http://www.visitmaldives.com.mv/images/nav-mal/geo2.jpg">
Actually I met a few Mohammedans from the Maledives a few years ago. They are decent people and far away from belonging to the "homicide bombing" crowd.
LOL! Nicely done, well played.
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