News Desk
Malé, Maldives — The Housing Ministry’s servers are unlikely to be salvaged following the fire that engulfed the Green Building on Thursday, Housing Minister Ali Haider said yesterday.
In separate interviews with media outlets, Mr. Haider disclosed, “A lot of information about the Housing Ministry is stored on the ministry’s servers. These include all employee records and information on various projects.”
He further explained that without access to the servers, retrieving that information would not be possible. “All the documents have been burned. It’s a huge loss for us,” he said.
The minister noted that few physical documents were saved from the fire, which began early Thursday morning. Most of the ministry’s digital data is stored on servers, and efforts to recover it are now focused on removing the hard disks for analysis.
“In addition to employee information and project data, critical documents, such as land registries and building drawings, are also stored on the server,” Mr. Haider said. He added that the hard disks might need to be sent abroad for further examination to determine whether any data can be salvaged.
The government has assured the public that critical information related to the new land allocation scheme remains intact, as it is stored in cloud-based systems. Key data, such as new flat allocation lists and beneficiary details, were unaffected by the fire. A statement from the Housing Ministry, issued four hours after the incident, confirmed that housing scheme documents are digitally maintained on the cloud.
Mr. Haider pledged that the flat allocation list would be made public as soon as the ongoing evaluation is completed.
The Green Building housed the Housing, Construction, and Environment Ministries. The fire caused extensive damage, prompting the relocation of affected ministries to Darubaruge, where preparations for resuming operations began Thursday night.
President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu visited Darubaruge on Thursday to inspect the preparations for the temporary relocation of the three ministries’ administrations following the fire at the Green Building. During the visit, he provided instructions to expedite the setup process and ensure that essential services could resume without delay.
“The damage is greater than expected,” Mr. Haider told local media, but he commended the efforts of various teams in bringing the situation under control. “With the help of many people, things are under control, and services are being prepared to start at Darubaruge,” he said.
While some documents were retrieved from the fire, it remains unclear which ones were saved. “There is not much hope, but if we can get the information, we will try to recover it,” Mr. Haider said. He described the recovery process as “a huge undertaking,” emphasizing the importance of preserving land registries and technical drawings stored on the compromised servers.
Mr. Haider also confirmed that HDC and other government companies are assisting in setting up a temporary office for the three affected ministries while long-term solutions are explored.
The minister had been attending the ninth session of the UN Committee on Statistics in Thailand when the fire broke out. Upon learning of the incident, he cut short his trip and returned to the Maldives to oversee recovery efforts. “He is now taking the lead in bringing things back to normal,” sources close to the ministry noted.
