MALE – The Indian Ocean island of Maldives will – like Noah and his Ark – pack up and leave should global warming raise sea levels at a dangerous pace.
The International Herald Tribunequotes several sources for a report that the new president of the Maldives, a nation of 1,200 low-lying islands, is planning to establish an investment fund, with some of its earnings from tourism so it can buy a haven for its citizens in the event a catastrophic flooding.
Mohamed Nasheed, a former political prisoner and now the country’s first democratically-elected president, named Sri Lanka and India as possible spots for a refuge, according to the BBC.
“We are just three feet above sea level. So any sea level rise could have a devastating effect on the people of the Maldives and their very survival,†said a spokesman for the president.
Male, the capital of the Maldives, is ringed by sea walls, built with assistance from Japan.
Many of the islands were submerged as the wave of the 2004 Asian tsunami surged by.
