The Hindu : Karnataka News : Violent sea erodes their hopes of survival

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Karnataka

Karnataka

Violent sea erodes their hopes of survival

Govind D. Belgaumkar

Tree falls and landslides give sleepless nights to those living on the coast; resort owners are worried

— Photo: R. Eswarraj

EROADING COAST: The spot where sea erosion was at its worst at Indiranagar in Ulall near Mangalore on Thursday.

MANGALORE: Standing near the houses abutting the sea at Indiranagar, CISCO Road, Ullal, you frequently take a few steps backward as powerful waves hit a wall of rocks or wall of sand.

Not because the waves will drench you, but because you do not know when the sand under your feet shifts.

There was a series of tree falls or landslides on Thursday and the waves sucked the debris in.

A group of three boys, who were watching the fury of the sea, which saw a concrete mouth of a channel bringing waste water from a fish processing unit collapse. “It collapsed only a few minutes ago,” they told this correspondent.

Aloysius Albuquerque, owner of nearby resorts, said about 15 to 20 metre of the resort land was swallowed by the Arabian Sea in the last 24 hours. “It is serious, very serious,” he said.

The people of Indiranagar said they spent sleepless nights for the last three days. “Unless we are alert, our houses will collapse on us,” said Hussain whose house is barely 15 ft away from the seashore.

“I live with six grandchildren” and he needs to protect them. A neighbour of his said, “We were not this scared even during tsunami. Sea was not this ferocious.”

Jerry Monteiro, Mr. Hussain’s neighbour, says the opposition from neighbouring resorts to put rocks had created a huge gap and this caused sea erosion.

When the Government wanted to put rocks last year, the resorts had opposed it and as a result a lot of land belonging to the resorts has been consumed by the sea.

Mr. Albuquerque said he had opposed the construction of a wall of rock abutting his resorts because his was a seaside resort and building such wall would keep away his customers.

He said sea erosion used to be checked earlier by natural inflow of sand through the Gurupur and Nethravathi rivers. But unabated sand mining in the two rivers upstream had stopped this process. The people living close to the sea were bearing the brunt now.

He said the French had the expertise to solve the problem but the Government was not serious in solving the problem. “They want to keep the problem alive for reasons well known,” he said.

Deputy Commissioner M. Maheshwar Rao, who visited the spot, said he had asked the tahsildar to take measures to place sand bags to prevent further sea erosion. He said the strengthening of the wall of rocks would be considered. He said a permanent solution to the problem could be possible after a study by experts.

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