Cramped Maldives take land from the ocean

Mal�, Maldive Islands - Life can be cramped when you live on a remote cluster of tiny coral islands in the Indian Ocean so the Maldives has plumped for a novel solution - build an island from scratch.

Emerging from the sea where a turquoise lagoon used to sit, man-made Hulhumale is springing to life as an overflow to the congested capital, Mal�, a short boat ride away.

Around 1 500 people now live in a first cluster of housing erected on the 188ha island, a giant building site to which the government hopes around 15 percent of the country's 300 000 mostly Sunni Muslim inhabitants will opt to migrate over the next 15 years.

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