Tsunami may accelerate Maldives' dilemma: Relocate or perish
Tsunami may accelerate Maldives' dilemma: Relocate or perish
Andrew Torchia, Associated Press/Maldives
Shopkeeper Mohammed Ibrahim stands among the ruins of his once-
idyllic island home and explains why he wants to leave forever.
"I love this place -- it's my homeland. But I don't want to
face this again," says Ibrahim, whose village on remote
Kandolhudhoo island was one of hundreds on this archipelago
nation devastated by the Dec. 26 tsunamis.
Little more than a week after the disaster, it's clear that
lifestyles and attitudes among the 280,000 people here may never
be the same.
Communities that have existed for decades face being broken up
as thousands of people are relocated.
Government officials and many residents are reassessing
whether it makes sense to live on hundreds of low-lying coral
islands scattered across 900 kilometers of ocean.
Perhaps most importantly, Maldivians' faith in the sea has
been shaken.
For centuries, the lives of most people here have depended on
the sea, through fishing and in the last few decades, tourism. Every
Maldivian lives within a few hundred meters of the water; small
children are allowed to play by the surf with a freedom not seen
in most countries.
"For hundreds of years we've seen the sea as our friend. We
make our living from it, and it's all around us," said Mohammed
Hussain Shareef, a government spokesman. "We never thought of it
as an enemy, an engulfing monster."
At 82 killed and 26 missing, the human casualty toll in the
Maldives has been much smaller than in other Asian nations struck
by the waves and the earthquake that spawned them. Officials say
the overall toll will exceed 150,000.
Officials here say the Maldives escaped a worse fate because
the tsunami didn't gain height and break over the low-lying
islands in the same way as it did over the coasts of large Asian
countries, as well as to Maldivians' experience of surviving in
the water.
But in some ways, the psychological impact has been greater
than the physical damage.
Because the Maldives is so low -- the average height of its
islands is just one meter, making it by some estimates the
world's lowest-lying country -- a huge proportion of its area was
hit by the tsunami.
Officials estimate up to 40 percent of the land area was
underwater at one stage. As many as 100,000 people are receiving
some form of emergency aid after the disaster, more than one
third of the population.
And even before the disaster, the Maldives was deeply worried
about global warming and irregular weather patterns in the Indian
Ocean.
If sea levels rise, much of the country could be obliterated
in coming decades, even in the absence of natural disasters; a
combination of higher water levels and further earthquake- or
weather-related events might be catastrophic, officials say.
That's why some Maldivians, although aware the next tsunami
may not come for decades, if ever, see last week's disaster as
the writing on the wall for the country in the long term.
Some say they're seriously considering emigrating -- not
necessarily at once, but in time for their children or
grandchildren to establish lives in safer environments.
Many people have long had the vague impression that Australia
or a Western country will accept the population of the Maldives
if environmental conditions become untenable later this century.
Now, people are wondering if they should wait until then.
"I'm thinking of finding a place to move my family. You have
to be realistic -- the year 2050 is probably the limit for this
country," says Ali Waheed, a businessman on the main island of
Male.
Moving abroad isn't an option for the mass of poorer
Maldivians. In some places, the disaster has strengthened
people's determination to shore up the defenses of their islands
by reclaiming land and building breakwaters.
On the hard-hit southern island of Vilufushi, for example,
village elders are discussing an ambitious scheme to raise the
height of the island by 50 centimeters and change its shape by
filling in a lagoon on the side where the tsunami hit.
But such schemes would require millions of dollars in aid from
the government or the international community -- and even if
they're implemented, it's unclear whether they'll work.
Other communities are likely to follow the example of
Kandolhudhoo, a northern island of 3,500 people which is one of
14 that were completely evacuated after the disaster. Though many
of those islands will be rebuilt and resettled in coming months,
Kandolhudhoo looks set to be permanently abandoned by its
population.
The island already suffered from monsoon flooding, and
villagers say the scale of the tsunami damage means it's not
worth trying to start over there.
President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom visited Kandolhudhoo and told
island representatives the government was prepared to help them
resettle on other islands.
That strategy ties in with an existing government effort to
encourage small communities to move from exposed, outlying
islands onto larger, better protected and economically more
viable islands.
The effort has been slowed by villagers' reluctance to break
ancestral ties with their home islands.
"We face the task of completely rebuilding 14 islands. It
makes sense to consider the sustainability of these places," said
Ahmed Shaheed, another government spokesman.
Near Male, a massive land reclamation project is underway that
could eventually settle up to 50,000 people, nearly a fifth of
the population.
But a big population shift could destroy the traditional
village cultures which make the Maldives unique and which the
government, by limiting foreign tourists' contact with villages,
has been trying to protect.
A Maldives whose people had withdrawn to a relatively small
number of big, heavily fortified islands might be able to survive
the climate change of the 21st century -- but for some, it
wouldn't be a Maldives worth protecting.
" We don't want to lose everything we've got," Shaheed said. "We
have to consider cultural and social issues."
Defense Minister Ismail Shafeeu says that however the country
chooses to distribute its population, it must review long-held
assumptions about how to live in an ocean environment that may be
becoming steadily less hospitable.
For example, methods of constructing buildings need to be
examined; hundreds of coral cottages were smashed by the tsunami
even as more modern buildings held up well.
Many villages obtain fresh water supplies from wells, but
these may be becoming more vulnerable to contamination by sea
water.
"We don't run the risk of being invaded by an army," he
Shaheed said. "We face a different enemy."
GetAP 1.00 -- JAN 4, 2005 14:20:29