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This is my best panorama and my worst. At least it shows how Kivalana is swallowed by the waves. Rising temperatures are causing a retreat of sea-ice and the thawing of permafrost along the coast of North West Alaska. This allows higher storms surges to reach the shore while thawing, makes Kivalina more vulnerable to wind-driven ice damage and erosion, undermining the village's homes and infrastructure.
They had erected an improvised wall of sandbags reinforced with steel matting, but never-the-less, at the time we were visiting the village in October 2006, a mild wind had forced a hole of 40 meters wide and 10 meters deep into this wall. New sandbags, with the aid of workers and equipment of the “nearby” Red Dog Mine, had to stop further erosion and the sliding of a house into the sea. This village is going to disappear from this place and will have to be relocated 7,5 miles inland.
More Quicktimes and info at http://www.bigthaw.eu/kivalina.htm
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