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The country that I find surprising - in a good way - is Maldives. The BBC chart lists their death toll as 67. Obviously that is 67 too many, but considering their highest point is only 2.4 meters and they were in a direct line to the original quake epicenter, they've fared well.

Apparently they built breakwaters around one or more of the larger islands after some floods in the 80's and that helped, but still, when you consider Somalia is twice as far away, is continental and not just low-lying islands, and still had almost twice the death toll, the Maldives did relatively OK.

Don't believe it...they are probably ONLY reporting for Male the main island...trust me there are many islands that are flat sandy patches that are fishing villages...they only way to them is by boat and the waters are relatively shallow and coral ridden...MOST that do travel go by helicopter only because the tourists want to visit or by sea plane.

The locals travel by wooden boats called Dohis and sleep on them at weeks at a time...

NO way on 67 as being the total NO WAY.

I traveled the Maldive islands on a live-aboard (scuba diving) for 3 weeks...some islands are about 20 feet in diameter with one coconut tree (yep like right out of a corny movie) and then there are other islands about 1/4 mile long and 1/8 mile wide that are complete villages...no electricity no running water primitive villages that engage in the fishing industry. I can tell you 67 is NOT the correct figure. I suspect that the Maldives are going to "ignore" their dead and NOT address any deaths that didn't occur on Male.

Apparently they built breakwaters around one or more of the larger islands after some floods in the 80's and that helped, but still, when you consider Somalia is twice as far away, is continental and not just low-lying islands, and still had almost twice the death toll, the Maldives did relatively OK.

It all depends on the off-shore topography. Diego Garcia was unscathed and it too is no more than a few feet above sea level; but the water deepens quickly off the Island. Tsunamis get destructive where there is continental shelf or gradually shallowing bottom, because the bottom slows the wave down and thus it grows in height in order to conserve energy.