Free Republic

NEW DELHI: Huge waves that battered the Indian coastline after an earthquake in Indonesia may have damaged a nuclear power plant in southern Tamil Nadu state, the government said on Monday. The Press Trust of India news agency said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had called a meeting on Tuesday to review any damage to the plant.

However, the government said two thirds of the capital was under about four feet (1.2 meters) of water in some areas. About a third of the country’s 330,000 population live in the highly congested capital island. Maldives is a cluster of 1,192 tiny coral islands scattered some 800 kilometres (500 miles) across the equator and is vulnerable to any rise in sea levels. The fate of tens of thousands of tourists in the Maldives was not immediately known.