TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Sinking Alexandria faces up to coming catastrophe
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
This picture taken on October 31, 2022 shows a view of the concrete blocks installed along the waterfront to break the Mediterranean sea waves off the medieval Citadel of Qaitbay in Egypt's northern Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria. (AFP/Khaled Desouki)
Alexandria, Egypt's fabled second city and its biggest port, is in danger of disappearing below the waves within decades.
With its land sinking, and the sea rising due to global warming, the metropolis Alexander the Great founded on the Nile Delta is teetering on the brink.
Even by the United Nations' best case scenario, a third of the city will be underwater or uninhabitable by 2050, with 1.5 million of its six million people forced to flee their homes.
Its ancient ruins and historic treasures are also in grave danger from the Mediterranean.
Already hundreds of Alexandrians have had to abandon apartments weakened by flooding in 2015 and again in 2020.
Every year the city sinks by more than three millimetres, undermined by dams on the Nile that hold back the river silt that once consolidated its soil and by gas extraction offshore.
Meanwhile, the sea is rising.
