Maldives, January 4 The highest natural point in the Maldives is no more than 5 feet above sea level, so low that water from the tsunami rushed over nearly every inch of this nation of 1,190 tiny islands. Here on Kolhufushi, there was no dry ground to run to.

“If it had lasted any longer, everything would have swept away,” said Yousef Sigee, 32, the chief of this island, a mere mile long and 300 yards across, a remote 85 miles south of the capital, Male.

In the end, 16 of Kolhufushi’s 1,230 residents are thought to have died on Dec. 26, making it one of the hardest-hit islands in the Maldives. In all, the death count from the Maldives, population 340,000, is 85, including 3 tourists.

It seems a paradox that the nation that would seem most vulnerable to a tsunami suffered far less death than some coastal areas of Sri Lanka, just to the northeast in the Indian Ocean, or in the part of Indonesia hit by the waves. Apparently, that is because the huge coral reefs that encircle the islands absorbed the impact somewhat.

People here say they are fortunate, but now they worry that, with images far more devastating from elsewhere, the Maldives may not get its share of the billions of dollars pledged for relief and reconstruction in the region. People in the Maldives say that would be unfair since virtually no part of the nation was untouched by destruction.

“It hit everywhere. To bring back normal life for people will be a Herculean task, said Ahmed Abdullah, a member of the Maldives Cabinet.”

Margareta Wahlstrom, an assistant secretary-general of the United Nations touring the countries that have been the worst hit, addressed the concern that the Maldives would not receive its share of assistance. “I intend to make it my mission to make sure it doesn’t happen,” she told reporters in Male after visiting Kolhufushi by seaplane.

Some experts have said that they believe the overall economic impact from the tsunami around the region will be relatively small, since the destruction occurred mostly along coastal areas, where the main industries — tourism and fishing — make up only a small portion of many of the nations’ economies. The difference here, officials say, is that the coast is all that Maldives has: half the nation’s gross domestic product comes from tourism and fisheries.

Moreover, these are the two economic sectors that the nation’s authoritarian government, led by President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, in power since 1978, has worked hard to improve in recent years — with enough success that the Maldives was taken off the U.N.’s list of least developed countries just six days before the tsunami hit.

Now, people here worry that the progress was wiped out in minutes.

“We had a lot of dreams,” said Firaq Mohamad, an owner of Inner Maldives, one of the nation’s biggest tour companies.

All but perhaps five of the island’s 174 houses are uninhabitable, Sigee said. The banana and mango trees appear to be lost. Their leaves have turned green, poisoned by the salt water.

Sigee said new banana and mango trees could be planted and ready for harvesting in six months. Meanwhile, he hoped his island was now blessed with the assistance that would make that possible.