The coralline islands in the common perception are considered as inviolable havens unaffected by the well-known problems touching the other seas of the Planet. Although particularly resilient for their intrinsic characteristics and natural susceptibility to natural phenomena, the tropical regions can be periodically shattered by the occurrence of natural disasters. It is the case of this small islet located in the South Ari Atoll, which in 1998 experimented a severe bleaching event causing the

more »

... eath of more than 90% of hard corals. Additionally, few years later this documentation the same area of the Indian Ocean has been subject to a disastrous tsunami event (the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004) in which several people perished and the landscape of this and other islands completely changed its overall appearance.