This story is from February 14, 2011

Living with shoreline erosion

Living along the coastline is a dream for many. But for those who do it is a nightmare. Monsoon signals the start of a three-month long nightmare for people who reside along the Mangalore coast.
Living with shoreline erosion
MANGALORE: Living along the coastline is a dream for many. But for those who do it is a nightmare. Monsoon signals the start of a three-month long nightmare for people who reside along the Mangalore coast. As the sea churns and the waves rise, it destroys houses and forces people along the coast to move to higher ground. Most are rendered homeless and emotionally battered by the end of the season.
It was only in the mid-70s that the phenomena of sea erosion was noticed.
Reasons given range from establishment of the New Mangalore Port, which altered the wave pattern eroding vast tracts of land to it being a natural phenomenon which occurs during the monsoon and subsides during the other months. Another reason being cited is the unscientific design of the breakwaters to allow boats into the Old port changed the wave pattern and started eroding land near Ullal and other areas. Sea erosion has become a reality which is endangering people's lives and property. For those who have lost their home and hearth, it is solutions they want. And there have been none.
The problem of sea erosion is acute in Ullal, Kotepura, Kulai, Hosabettu, Doddakopallu, Mukka, Sasihitlu and some more areas. Such is Nature's fury that the beautiful beaches have been transformed into graveyards of boulders which have been dumped to arrest the march of the sea waves into landward area.
In fact, dumping boulders was nothing short of a scam. Nobody has any ideal how many boulders were dumped or whether it was done scientifically. It was just an eyewash by politicians to show that measures were taken to arrest sea erosion. But all one can see are the beaches disfigured by the monstrosity.
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