Homeless Maldivians forced to sleep in open boats

More than a week after it rose up and destroyed their homes, residents of the low-lying Maldives atoll of Kolhufushi are being forced to seek refuge on the sea.

The Maldives government is struggling to deliver emergency aid to more than 1,000 islands spread out over 560 miles of the Indian Ocean.

On the remote island of Kolhufushi, hundreds of people are sleeping in fishing boats because their homes are too damaged to live in.

At least 10 people died and more than 50 were injured when waves as high as 13 feet engulfed the low-lying island, 90 miles south of the capital, Male.

At least 80 people died in the Maldives, one of a least a dozen countries hit by the earthquake-triggered waves.

The waves smashed coral houses, destroyed food supplies, contaminated fresh water wells with sea water, and ruined power generators and communications equipment.

On one side of the tiny island, a chunk of land the size of a football field slid into the sea.

Villagers said the first wave swept about 200 screaming people off the island and out into the lagoon. A second wave from another direction arrived a few minutes later and carried them back onto land.

Small children were deposited by the waves on top of cottage roofs 10 feet off the ground.

Damage is so severe that it is not safe for people to move back into houses until they have been completely rebuilt. The women and children have moved into concrete school buildings and tents pitched on the waterfront, but there are not enough tents so the 400 men of the island sleep in their boats.

Twenty to thirty of them are packed into each 20-foot boat. They rise around dawn to resume clearing debris from the streets, repairing equipment and salvaging possessions.

Relief efforts are being hindered by the difficulty of delivering aid to 1,192 tiny inhabited islands scattered across 560 miles of ocean.

Across the Maldives, about 14,000 people have been displaced from their homes, and as many as 100,000 of the population of 280,000 are dependent on some form of emergency aid – mainly food, water, medical supplies and shelter.