North and South Maalhosmadulu Atolls are in the Maldives, an island republic in the northern Indian Ocean, southwest of India. Maldives is made up of a chain of 1192 small coral islands that are grouped into clusters of atolls. It has a total area of 298 sq km and a population of about 330,000. The capital and largest city is Malé, with a population of about 80,000. Arguably the lowest-lying country in the world, the average elevation is 1 m above sea level. Waves triggered by the great tsunami of December 2004 spilled over sea walls to flood Malé with sand-clouded water and then swept out just as suddenly. Residents fear this was a foreboding of disasters to come from sea-level rise due to global warming. The simulated natural color ASTER image was acquired 22 December 2002, covers an area of 50.8 x 90.4 km, and is centered near 5.3 degrees north latitude, 73.9 degrees west longitude.

Please give credit for these images to: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

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This file has an extracted image: Malosmadulu Atolls, Maldives (cropped to Meedhupparu in center).jpg.