27 December 2004
By Reuters

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (Reuters) -- The Maldives declared a state of emergency on Sunday after a tsunami wave deluged the remote Indian Ocean island cluster and flooded two thirds of the capital. More than 40 people were feared dead.

Seawater poured into the heavily built-up streets of Male, forcing residents to wade thigh-high to try and save their vehicles. Many cars were swamped and unsalvagable.

Television footage showed Maldivians wading through Male, picking up debris and garbage. The government was unable to reach many of the archipelago's more remote islands because phone lines were down.

"The scale of the damage is such that we have decided to declare a state of emergency," chief government spokesman Ahmed Shaheed told Reuters by mobile telephone from Male.

Emergency declared in The Maldives

"We are still unable to get through to some of the people stranded in the islands."

None of the thousands of foreign visitors holidaying in the country, a magnet for honeymooners and well-heeled tourists from around the globe, were believed to have been killed although some had suffered minor injuries, he added.

Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom has spent much of his 26 years in power warning of the dangers that global warming, erosion and shifting weather patterns pose to low-lying island nations like his own.

The chain of 1,200 tiny palm-fringed coral islands dotted across 500 miles (800 km) off the toe of India lies just a few feet above sea level.

"The damage is considerable," Shaheed said. "(Male) is only about three feet (one meter) above sea level and a wave of water four feet (1.3 metres) high swept over us."

The government was still trying to establish communication with smaller islands where many buildings, including houses, had been flattened.

"There is damage on a very wide scale. We are awaiting a full report but certainly thousands are displaced," Shaheed said.

Male, which is 2 km (1.25 miles) long and 800 metres (half a mile) wide and home to 75,000 people, is bursting at the seams.

The island capital's streets of white-washed houses are very cramped and areas of communal open space sparse for residents -- so much so that the government is building a brand new island from scratch as an overflow.

Most of the Maldives 300,000 mostly Sunni Muslim population are involved in the tourist industry, the nation's economic backbone.

The Maldives' 200 inhabited islands are home on average to just a few hundred people or house luxury tourist resorts which offer some of South Asia's most expensive holiday accommodation.

Telecommunications were cut to many islands, and Maldives radio broadcast prayers.

"It is a very bad situation. It is terrible," Shaheed said after a tour of Male.

"As you know it is the peak tourist season... The whole of the Maldives is a tourist area so we are just hoping and praying," he added.

He said the international airport, which itself lies just a few feet above sea level on an island of its own, was unusable.

The tsunami comes just days ahead of December 31 parliamentary elections. It was not immediately clear if the elections would be delayed.