Wall to hold back rising seas in Pacific

The low-lying Marshall Islands, a Pacific atoll chain that rises barely a metre above sea level, has announced plans for a wall to hold back rising sea levels.

“We want to prevent erosion and stop flooding,” UN ambassador Phillip Muller said at the launching of an appeal for $20 million in international donor funds to get the project under way.

The sea level should be similar or higher than those seen during 2008, when waves flooded parts of Majuro and other atolls in the country, a weather report said.

The Marshall Islands, a nation of 29 coral atolls and five single islands, stretches across 800,000 square kilometres of Pacific Ocean but has only about 116 square kilometres of dry land, most of which is not more than a metre above the high tide mark.

The plan is to build a five-kilometre seawall on the leeward coast of Majuro Atoll for shore protection as well as to landfill small bays to increase landmass as a buffer against rising sea levels and high waves during storms.