Dubai’s property industry may be shrinking but reports that its man-made islands are sinking are “wholly inaccurate”, claims Nakheel.

Fears that The World islands may be sinking spread after NASA photographs (pictured) showed changes to the view from space since construction paused on the project in November.

The UK’s Daily Mail newspaper claimed that the images showed the islands “rapidly merging together” and “sinking”.

According to NASA's Earth Observatory website: “Little to no infrastructure development of The World is apparent in this astronaut photograph.”

However, Nakheel has refuted the claims that the islands, 70 per cent of which have already been sold, are being neglected.

“Speculative reports suggesting that The World islands are sinking are wholly inaccurate,” Nakheel said in a statement.

“The suggestion also that some of the islands have slipped and spread into each other is also completely incorrect,” the developer said.

A report by Reuters claimed that the load-bearing capacity of the islands’ land mass is around twice that of mainland Dubai.

The 300 man-made private and resort islands are shaped to resemble a world map. Constructing the ambitious development involved placing 320 million cubic metres of sand and 34 million tonnes of large rocks.

Measuring approximately 9 kilometres in width, by 7 kilometres in length, the development will cover approximately 931 hectares and add an additional 232 kilometres of beachfront to Dubai’s coastline.

Images © NASA Earth Observatory

Gemma Battenbough

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