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6 January 2005
By The Australian Newspaper
KANDOLHUDHOO: The island is deserted, its
homes smashed, power and communications wrecked
and its wells contaminated by seawater.
The desolate scene on the remote Maldivian
ghost island of Kandolhudhoo, evacuated after
the waves hit, reminded US marine Major Max
Andrews of war-torn cities in Iraq. I was
in Fallujah last summer and saw the devastation
and damage there. But that was surgical and
aimed at specific targets," he said
yesterday. "Here it's total. Everything
is gone." Major Andrews is part of a
four-member military-civilian US team sent
to the Maldives to assess the extent of the
damage in preparation for US aid.
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40%
of Maldives disappeared for a moment,
Maldives
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Accompanied by Maldivian military officers,
the team flew by seaplane to Kandolhudhoo
in the Raa Atoll about 200km northwest of
the capital Male. At least 1000 US military
personnel are expected to be in the Sri Lanka-Maldives
area within a week to help with relief and
recovery. A 3m wave swept over Kandolhudhoo,
which is less than a kilometre square and,
like most of the Maldives' tiny coral islands,
only about 1m above sea-level.
The tsunami killed three people and injured
about 50 others on Kandolhudhoo, which made
its living mainly though fishing and had
been one of the area's wealthiest islands.
It smashed boats and single-storey coral
houses, and caused some buildings' foundations
to collapse. The population of 3500 has been
evacuated. On Sunday, a week after the disaster,
the island's narrow streets were still littered
with debris: masonry, broken glass and household
possessions.
Fish left stranded by the wave rotted inside
some houses. Although the nationwide death
toll stands at a relatively light 80, with
28 listed as missing, officials say the archipelago's
low-lying nature means damage will run into
the hundreds of millions of dollars. A final
decision on whether to rebuild and resettle
the island has not been made, but most people
from Kandolhudhoo say they do not want to
return. The island had already suffered monsoon
flooding and many islanders feel the scale
of the tsunami damage means it's not worth
trying to start over.
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