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Sinking Alexandria faces up to coming catastrophe
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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.
