Coral Ring Repelled Waves,
Leaving Lower Death Toll;
Conservation Efforts Pay

By JAMES HOOKWAY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 30, 2004; Page A7

MALE, Maldives -- The pristine coral reefs that draw hundreds of thousands of visitors each year to this far-flung island nation in the Indian Ocean may have spared the country the worst of the devastation wreaked by the tsunami that hammered countries across Asia this week.

Officials here say the extensive reefs that ring the Maldives smothered the tsunami, preventing it from breaking on the archipelago's most heavily populated atolls. Though 69 people are confirmed dead in the country so far, it could have been much worse if unhampered tourism and practices such as dynamite fishing had been allowed to damage the intricate 500-mile network of coral reefs that buffer the islands from the open sea.

"The waves hit the islands flat, with little force. They didn't break, it was mostly just a swell," says Ismail Firag, deputy director of planning and development at the Maldives ministry of tourism, and who once studied the effect of tsunamis in Fiji. "I was worried that the reef would break up, but it didn't."