"The sea ate everything" : Guadeloupe, French department most affected by coastal erosion
Cairo: Hani Kamal El-Din
“The equivalent of a football field disappears every week in our country due to the progression of the oceans”. This is the alert launched at the beginning of the month by the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu. This phenomenon risks further amplifying in the years to come. According to the latest study by the Center for Studies and Expertise on Risks, Mobility and Development (Cerema), by 2050 more than 5 000 homes would become uninhabitable.
The cause: natural erosion and rising sea levels caused by global warming. The most affected department is Guadeloupe. The Antilles archipelago alone accounts for more than 10% of threatened housing and several municipalities are already affected. In Petit-Bourg, for example, faced with the encroachment of the sea, around thirty families have already had to be relocated.
To best observe the erosion of the cliffs in the commune of Petit-Bourg, you have to take to the sea. The water is brown here, and we quickly understand why. The ocher-colored cliffs, around ten meters high, are crumbling almost day by day. Diego is an instructor at the nautical base, he is above all a native of the country. “It all collapsed, and it’s getting worse. We used to walk everywhere here”, he said, observing the landscape. In 20 years, the beach has effectively disappeared, replaced by a pile of earth, dead trees and concrete blocks. “The sea has eaten everything. Below, we see a house that has fallen”he describes.
Several houses were in fact swept away by the landslides, others are balanced on the edge of the cliff. Vania, 68 years old, lives in one of these houses facing the sea “since the age of 17”. The cliff has never been so close to his house, about fifteen meters away. She must therefore leave the premises.
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- Source of information and images “pleinevie“
