Broken walls are visible in most communities in the Keta municipality not covered by the sea

Keta communities still under sea attack

Seth J. Bokpe Feb - 20 - 2016 , 08:21

Imagine travelling for two years and returning to your hometown only to see one building standing on a small piece of land. For many settlers of Kporkporgbor in the Keta Municipality, this is the reality and not an imagination.

The area is a fishing community devoured by the sea. Two years ago, there were 50 houses and two churches but what remains now is one house on a small land dotted with coconut trees.

Kporkporgbor’s population of more than 200 people has been reduced to just two: the watchman and the caretaker of the house whose owner does not expect to live in the community beyond the Easter holidays because of the constant pounding of the shore by tidal waves.

The community is among five in the Keta Municipality — Fuveme, Dzita, Havedzi, Xorvi- and several many others in the Ketu South Municipality, including Blekusu, Adina and Agavedzi, being gradually wiped out by the sea.

In most of those communities visited by The Mirror recently, homes and Schools have been destroyed, schools destroyed, fishermen pushed out of business and giant trees uprooted.

Though the Keta and Ada Sea Defence projects were meant to cushion beneficiary towns against the rampaging waves, some communities in the municipality believe that the projects had rather diverted tidal pressures to their communities.

“All that is happening here is because the sand bars which protected the whole area have been washed away.

“The government has attempted to solve the problem in Ada but the pressure of the tidal waves has been diverted towards here after the construction of the Ada sea defence. One place was destroyed to fix another,” Mr Frank Kofigah, an expert in coastal geomorphology, said.