Monday, May 18, 2015

‘Disaster after disaster’ hits Marshall Islands as climate change kicks in

Rusina Rusin on April 16, 2015, with her grandchildren,
 including Keslynna Myo Sibok, right, at their home in
the part of the Marshall Islands' Majuro Atoll that is
most vulnerable to flooding.Renee Lewis / Al Jazeera

Rising seas and increasing floods put low-lying islands on front line of climate change; president appeals for help


This is part one of a three-part series examining the effects of climate change on the Marshall Islands and what is being done to adapt to the increasing threats it poses.

MAJURO, Marshall Islands — “They came and told us to evacuate to the next house, which is stronger, because there will be a flood. The tide went up to the front porch and I was scared because of the big waves,” said 7-year-old Keslynna Myo Sibok, a resident of Majuro, the capital of the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a remote chain of 29 low-lying coral atolls and five islands that lies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and has found itself on the front lines of climate change.

Keslynna sat in the front yard of her grandmother’s home, located on their atoll’s most vulnerable edge, where there is nothing to protect it from increasingly unpredictable and severe inundations.  READ MORE

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