Maldives holds world's first underwater cabinet meeting

Maldivian cabinet on Saturday met at the bottom of the sea, marking the first ever such meeting to be held underwater, which framed an SOS to global leaders to save their atoll nation from being submerged by the rising seas.

The SOS in the shape of a declaration was approved at the 25-minute cabinet meeting presided over by President Mohammad Nasheed.

The declaration will be presented at the Copenhagen meet on climate change in December, with Nasheed saying that Maldives was not the only country facing such a calamity.

Nasheed and his cabinet colleagues scuba-dived to their underwater rendezvous and spent 45 minutes sitting across a number of tables immersed to the bottom of the sea, off the Girifushi island, about 35 nautical miles from capital Male.

The Maldivian ministers went to these extraordinary lengths as a UN panel on climate change had warned that even a rise of sea levels between 18 to 60 cm would submerge the islands by 2100.

Of late, Maldives has been drawing the attention of the world on the need to take steps to halt rising sea levels.