http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=10995&cid=8&cname=News
(snip)
The waves caused deaths and serious damage in Indonesia, India, Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and the Maldives, among other countries.
Because of the season, beach resorts throughout the affected region were jammed with holiday tourists, many in dwellings on or very near the beach.
Eyewitness reports say that in most places, the tsunamis struck without warning.
I have the news on now..nothing yet to speak of. I wonder if there is a rescue op in the works? US military? or maybe a debate in the UN so this can all be blamed on Bush/USA?
From ABC News online http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1272452.htm
Last Update: Sunday, December 26, 2004. 7:33pm (AEDT)
Tsunami floods Maldives
Two-thirds of the Maldives capital was flooded today after a series of tsunami waves triggered by an earthquake swamped the low-lying Indian Ocean archipelago, a popular tourist destination.
"The damage is considerable," chief government spokesman Ahmed Shaheed told Reuters.
"The island is only about three feet (one metre) above sea level and a wave of water four feet (1.3 metres) high swept over us."
Male, which is 2 kilometres long and 800 metres wide and home to 75,000 people, is bursting at the seams.
The streets of white-washed houses are heavily built up, living conditions often cramped and areas of communal open space sparse for the country's 300,000 people - most of whom are involved in the tourist industry, the Maldives' economic backbone.
"It is a very bad situation. It is terrible," Mr Shaheed told Reuters by telephone after a tour of the capital.
"As you know it is the peak tourist season. We are trying to get reports from those areas. The whole of the Maldives is a tourist area so we are just hoping and praying."
He said the international airport was unusable, adding that President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom would shortly declare a national disaster and appeal for international assistance.
President 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.
"We still face the threat of sea level rise," he told Reuters in a recent interview.
"There is encroachment of the sea on many islands, there is erosion of our beaches."
-Reuters