NADI, Fiji Low-lying South Pacific countries are asking their neighbors to prepare for a complete exodus of their people if global warming causes rising seas to swamp their island homes.
Kiribati President Anote Tong, whose nation of 32 atolls and 92,500 people has almost no land higher than 3 meters (10 feet) above sea level, said he would ask Australia and New Zealand to accept the region's environmental refugees.
"If we are talking about our island states submerging in 10 years' time, we simply have to find somewhere else to go," Tong said at a news conference Monday ahead of a meeting of the 16-member South Pacific Forum.
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Tong is the leader of a group of the smallest Pacific nations. Besides Kiribati, areas considered under threat from rising sea levels are Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and sections of Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.
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http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/24/asia/AS_GEN_South_Pacific_Summit_Sinking_States.php