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A fishing community in Senegal deals with the effects of climate change Date published: 1/27/2008
BY KAFIA HOSH RUFISQUE, Senegal--Mbaye Dieng woke with a start one morning last summer to the sight and sound of water gushing into his small bedroom. A powerful thunderstorm the night before flooded Dieng's home in Thiawlene, a suburb of the town of Rufisque. Fifteen-foot waves crashed into the beach-side community, bursting its earthen levy and flooding dozens of homes and the local cemetery. Dieng, 78, is the patriarch of his family, about 100 of whom live in a small compound of square concrete houses. The night of the flood, water seeped into the bedrooms "and lifted all the beds," Dieng said through an interpreter. Children were evacuated to neighboring homes or hauled onto rooftops. rising sea levels The thunderstorm's damage was exacerbated by a recent phenomenon--rising sea levels off the coast of Rufisque. In the past 20 years, the ocean has moved 150 meters inland, swallowing up homes and a mosque along the way. Thiawlene, a fishing community of about 5,000 people, was settled centuries ago by watermen. "There is no organization on how they settle," said Lt. Col. Mamadou Adje, whose army engineer battalion led relief efforts after the flood. "They just settle near the sea. This is one of the problems of Rufisque, people live too close to the sea." Climatologists blame rising sea levels largely on global warming. Melting glaciers increase the oceans' volume, and rising temperatures "warm seawater and cause it to expand," explained Carl Hershner, a marine science professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester. "Those things combined cause a rate of sea-level rise." virginia suffers, too Like Dieng in Senegal, Virginians have had problems with rising sea levels. In 2003, Hurricane Isabel ripped through Colonial Beach, where 8-foot-high waves destroyed homes, restaurants and the pier. Representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency soon arrived, setting up shelters and repairing downed power lines. In Thiawlene, the Senegalese government distributed rice, blankets and sponge mattresses. But the community mostly had to fend for itself. Dieng has heard of Hurricane Katrina and other torrential storms that have ravaged the United States' coastline. "We feel the difference is that we don't have the same means," Dieng said. "We had no means of evacuating the people as they did in the United States." something irreplaceable
Date published: 1/27/2008
Gore better start practicing what he's preaching... and FAST!!
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