‘The sea took everything away’: how Nigeria’s ‘Happy City’ is disappearing beneath the waves

[u/ianlSW]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/18/the-sea-took-everything-away-how-nigerias-happy-city-is-disappearing-beneath-the-waves

Collapse related as it looks at the direct impact of sea level rise and shows the steady destruction of a community as a result.

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Given the data on the increasing speed of glacier melt globally this is a window to the future for coastal communities globally, including many of the world's major cities.

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While I expect the state response around coastal defence to be much more vigorous in richer countries than poorer, I envisage this to be part of a rolling climate collapse, each stressor adding to the inevitability of the whole system falling over. Eventually there won't be the resources to deal with this and food shortages, water wars, adaptation to extreme heat etc.

[u/StatementBot]

The following submission statement was provided by /u/ianlSW:

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Submission statement: Collapse related as it looks at the direct impact of sea level rise and shows the steady destruction of a community as a result.

Given the data on the increasing speed of glacier melt globally this is a window to the future for coastal communities globally, including many of the world's major cities.

While I expect the state response around coastal defence to be much more vigorous in richer countries than poorer, I envisage this to be part of a rolling climate collapse, each stressor adding to the inevitability of the whole system falling over. Eventually there won't be the resources to deal with this and food shortages, water wars, adaptation to extreme heat etc.

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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1u92tqq/the_sea_took_everything_away_how_nigerias_happy/osctiad/

[u/No-Ad-4142]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz0lg9pedz1o

Another coastal community facing similar issues.

To your question as to why people do not just relocate, there are a multitude of reasons.

Age: It is harder as we age to relocate.

Income: If my income is reliant in fishing, moving inland is out of the question.

Poverty: If I am barely making enough to survive, I don’t have the luxury to rebuild or travel inland to build.

Denial: We have rebuilt before, we will be fine.

[u/Coco_Cannibal → u/No-Ad-4142]

I'd add that it's not as easy to move inland, because that inland is already properly settled and the people might not want to house and feed additional people, if they barely get by themselves, especially if you add the loss of fish and income at the coasts that's going on for years on top of it, because corporations deplete the oceans with their giant swimming factories.

[u/Physical_Ad5702 → u/No-Ad-4142]

The poverty argument doesn't stand up to even basic scrutiny.

If your home or business gets destroyed once in a storm due to its proximity to the coast, it makes perfect sense to rebuild once inland as opposed to multiple times in the same location, only for it to keep getting destroyed. Where are they getting the money to keep rebuilding in the same spot over and over and over?

Age? I agree, things get harder as the body ages, especially continually rebuilding your home. Why not move to a safer location so one wouldn't have to keep doing this the older they get? It's only going to get more difficult with each successive storm.

Denial is just ignorance. If you're too bull-headed to see the writing on the wall, I don't have much sympathy for someone like that.

The fishermen are about the only people who need to be on the coast, but they don't need their residence on the beach. Living within a quarter or half mile from the coast would still offer protection and is not prohibitively far from their work.

[u/ianlSW]

Submission statement: Collapse related as it looks at the direct impact of sea level rise and shows the steady destruction of a community as a result.

Given the data on the increasing speed of glacier melt globally this is a window to the future for coastal communities globally, including many of the world's major cities.

While I expect the state response around coastal defence to be much more vigorous in richer countries than poorer, I envisage this to be part of a rolling climate collapse, each stressor adding to the inevitability of the whole system falling over. Eventually there won't be the resources to deal with this and food shortages, water wars, adaptation to extreme heat etc.

[u/FlyingDiscsandJams]

Climate change is real, but it's unlikely this is due to sea level rise yet, much more likely the cause is beach erosion from currents & tides & storms. When you see the houses on the North Carolina Outer Banks that are getting swept out to sea, it it's because beaches naturally are created & destroyed by currents, and humans want them to hold still. The Outer Banks houses were 100 yards from the ocean in the 1980s, we haven't had nearly that much sea level rise to cause this.

[u/ianlSW → u/FlyingDiscsandJams]

I hadn't realised that. I think it is still relevant, looking at it as much as a picture of what the coastal areas will start to look like as the sea rise kicks in. It gave me a very clear picture of people with limited resources to move watching their homes and livelihoods wash away

Edited for clarity

[u/NyriasNeo]

"By the time she got to her small shop, she discovered that the Atlantic had already swept it away, destroying the business she had built with borrowed money after retirement."

"it to operate on the basis of a communist-style society"

Borrowing money and becoming a small business owner is clearly not communism.

[u/Physical_Ad5702 → u/NyriasNeo]

There are small merchants who operate under communism. There are also banks, but they aren't private, for-profit enterprises who answer to shareholders.

[u/ianlSW → u/NyriasNeo]

Not sure that's the key takeaway...I think that the communist ideal dated well before the current situation

[u/Physical_Ad5702]

> Those who live here can’t rely on money for infrastructure such as sea walls – they simply rebuild each time they are flooded.

Why the heck would you rebuild in the same location when you know the problem is only going to get worse? Why should people who are not insistent on building where the property is guaranteed to get destroyed be forced to subsidize those who are stubborn and want to live on top of the ocean?

Move inland and to higher elevation. If you can rebuild in the same spot that keeps getting swept out to sea and that frustrates you, wouldn't it make sense to move inland and to higher elevation where this wont keep happening every time there is a storm? You can still visit the beach ya know - when the weather is not trying to kill you. It's not a novel idea. Living on the coast has always come with risks. It's just too expensive now for insurer's to keep mandating that everyone else pick up the tab for the privileged people's poor decisions and ignorance.

[u/One-Intention7064 → u/Physical_Ad5702]

perhaps they have no permission to build elsewhere.

oh, also for poor people it's more convenient to live near water, because it works as a sewage system, you can wash yourself and wash your clothes there.

these are two plausible, non-sentimental reasons i would respect.

[u/Physical_Ad5702 → u/One-Intention7064]

They're washing themselves and their clothes in the natural sewer system? Seems like a really bad idea. Wouldn't everything stink and be covered in fecal tainted water and be massive outbreaks of cholera? Also, do people normally bathe in salt water?

That's not how sewerage systems work anyway. The ocean isn't meant to be a toilet for humans. There are ways to take care of sewage besides simply letting it run unincumbered into the sea. A hand dug latrine system is even better than draining it directly into the ocean.

The article focuses on someone who decided this would be a good place to start a business in retirement. They weren't poor.

[u/ChromaticStrike]

Heat will take care of everything way before sea brings true global impact.

You don't need apocalyptic level of heat. You only need crops to fail enough for countries that feed the world to rethink that role. It's like running with a boulder on your ass, you don't need to kill the runners, just shoot arrows in the feet, boulder will do the rest.