00:01Communities along Panama's Pacific Coast are living on the edge due to a powerful wave.
00:07Since 2009, they have lost at least 15 homes.
00:11Rising sea levels are being worsened by human activity,
00:14while residents are calling on the state for a plan that the government has yet to put in place.
00:19Our colleague, Rekha Chandiramani, has more details.
00:22Rising sea levels are threatening the community of Puerto Camito,
00:28the hometown of famous New York Yankees baseball player Mariano Rivera,
00:32as well as San Jose and Punta Chame, located along Panama's Pacific Coast.
00:38The sea has eaten away a lot, and it's no longer like it used to be.
00:45Before, you could see the tide far away, yes, it was far, but not anymore.
00:50Now you come and it practically reaches your house.
00:53And that's traumatizing. Traumatizing in the sense that you're constantly anxious,
00:57thinking the tide is coming and will reach the house.
01:00The problem is that it almost always happens at night.
01:08The coastal area is very dangerous to live in now, because all coastal zones are at risk.
01:13One of these days, the sea could become even fiercer than it already is, and sweep away everything.
01:20Olga lost her home in 2009. She was the first victim of these waves in San Jose.
01:27She says that the impacts of climate change are being worsened by human actions.
01:32Mangrove deforestation and sun extraction are also factors that contribute to climate change,
01:41causing the sea to rise a little closer to where our homes are.
01:47The sea has swept away at least 15 homes, residents along Panama's Pacific coast live in fear of losing their homes,
01:58unable to relocate on their own due to beach gentrification and government inaction.
02:03At a moment of a strong wave that hit the community, she saw how the sea took her house away.
02:15She told us how it carried away not only her home, but also all the memories she had inside it.
02:24It is necessary to have policies now to support these populations, because these are very impoverished communities.
02:36They are communities of people who have dedicated their entire lives to fishing, and today, fishing resources are depleted.
02:43What these communities are facing today will extend along more than 1,700 kilometers of Panama Pacific coast.
02:55According to the Ministry of Environment, Panama could lose more than 2% of its territory due to coastal erosion,
03:01an urgent problem that threatens the country's ecological and social balance.
03:06Reca Chandiramani, Telesur, Ciudad de Panamá.
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