Country Maldives Time zone MST (UTC+05:00) Administrative atoll Dhaalu Atoll | Distance to Malé 179.70 km (111.66 mi) Population 2,506 (Sep 2014) | |
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Geographic atoll Indian Ocean (2°40' North; 72°54' East) | ||
KUDAhuvadhoo (Dhivehi: ކުޑަހުވަދޫ) is one of the inhabited islands of Dhaalu or South Nilande Atoll in the Maldives.
Map of Kudahuvadhoo, Maldives
It is the capital of the atoll. According to the 2014 Census, conducted in September 2014, Kudahuvadhoo had a resident population of 2447. (this number includes the residents of Gemendhoo and Vaanee evacuated to Kudahuvadhoo after the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004).
Kudahuvadhoo has one of the mysterious mounds known as hawittas. These mounds are the ruins of Buddhist temples from the pre-Islamic period (before the 10th century) that have not been excavated yet. Thor Heyerdahl, who explored the island in the early 1980s, wrote that the ancient coral-stone mosque of Kudahuvadhoo possesses some of the finest masonry ever seen in the world.
Kudahuvadhoo is a fast developing island in the Maldives. The government decided to develop an airport in Kudahuvadhoo by the end of 2014. The airport project now has been started by a Dutch company.
People from other islands come to Kudahuvadhoo for better education and health facilities. Moreover, Kudahuvadhoo is the urban hub in the whole central area of the Maldives, which includes Faafu atoll, Meemu atoll and Dhaalu atoll.
On March 19, 2014 the New York Post said that residents of Kudahuvadhoo reported having seen a low-flying airplane travelling north to southeast towards Addu (the southern tip of the Maldives) resembling the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared in midflight to Beijing from Malaysia on March 8, 2014. This lent credence to one of the theories that the flight had been commandeered by someone who intended to land the plane in a remote area. Kudahuvadhoo had no airstrip. The Male International Airport 182 km northnortheast of Kudahuvadhoo was one that the pilot had practised landing on, using his homemade flight simulator. The claim that the sighted jet was MH370 was subsequently rejected by Malaysia's minister of transport and defence.