Sea advancing gradually onto land in Kribi

Embankment walls mounted along the shores to halt the sea are being destroyed one by one.

Madoukou Aboubakar, 21, shook his head in sadness for the umpteenth time on Friday, August 22, 2014 at about 8:20 am as he sped his motorbike past the Government Bilingual High School (Lycee Bilingue) in Kribi, chief town of the Ocean Division of the South Region.

Ever since he arrived the seaside city to work as a commercial motorbike rider, he told Cameroon Tribune that he has been observing the advancement of the sea with keen interest.

Pointing to a particular area, a few metres from the road the separates the Lycee Bilingue and the three-lined beach, Aboubakar claimed the sea’s advancement was even more visible there as evidenced by the watermark left the night before. “If nothing is done particularly in this section, then the sea will cross this road soon,” he said.

In effect, some of the trees planted along the beach have been uprooted by the advancing sea. The shores are dry of individuals as several notices put up by the Kribi City Council forbids some parts of the beach for swimming after several cases of drowning recorded in the recent past.

“The sea behaves as though it has hands,” commented Aboubakar, hastening to add that even the indigenes are saying the “gods of the sea” are angry.

The advancement of the sea has become a disturbing issue to the inhabitants of Kribi especially owners of private residences and hotels along the beach. Besides uprooting some trees planted along the beach, the sea has swallowed up private dykes mounted with drums of stone or concrete walls and menacing even more resistant ones.

At the Residence Jully hotel built at the seashore, the ingenious idea of constructing a dyke using rocks tied together by strong inox wires covered by plastic material to prevent rust, is holding its ground against the sea and protecting the hotel premises.

But of late, its foundation made of concrete was washed away by the sea thereby destabilising the dyke and facilitating the sea’s penetration to continue its erosion of the hotel’s grounds.

“We observe that the every year the sea erodes the shore and advances,” said Marcel Nana Yonkeu, administrative and financial head of Residence Jully hotel.

The 120-metre long dyke that cost some FCFA 45 million to be mounted now needs attention. “We plan to close the 25-year old hotel soon for a three-month renovation work period that will include reinforcing the dyke,” he told Cameroon Tribune, hoping that the State will step in with greater means for a durable solution.