Atlantic overflows Lagos shore, floods streets

Raging waters of the Atlantic Ocean overshot the shore in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, on Tuesday, flooding several streets and underscoring a perennial problem of coastal erosion. Residents and occupants of offices in the Bar Beach area of high-brow Victoria Island district, were put on edge in the afternoon when phenomenally high waves crashed on the shore, washing away the protective sandfill and drowning the adjoining dual-carriage road. "We heard an unusually huge roar and when I looked out of the window I saw the ocean where the road had been moments before," Shade Sani, a banker with offices on one of the adjoining high rise buildings, told IRIN. Some panic-stricken residents fled temporarily but returned when the waters began to recede hours later. Several streets were covered in about half a metre of water, resulting in a chaotic build up of traffic. It was the second such incident this year though the problem has persisted since 1996. Two years ago much of the Bar Beach which had been washed away was reclaimed by German construction company, Julius Berger, which pumped in sand at the cost of 700 million naira (US $6.08 million). Almost all of the sand embankment has been washed away by the latest incidents. Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Physical Planning, Kayode Anibaba, told 'The Guardian' daily on Monday US $400 million was required to deal with the problem permanently. He traced the erosion of the Bar Beach to 1914, when the British colonial authorities created "two moles" to protect the Lagos Harbour. The action, Anibaba said, triggered a "back-wash of sand from the Bar Beach" now being deposited at an island forming to the east of the harbour. A South African consultancy firm, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, has undertaken a study of the problem and suggested solutions already considered and accepted by the authorities. The first phase requires the pumping of four million cubic metres of sand at the beach, for which Entech Consultants, another South African company, has been engaged.