Vultures roam the sand in the Brazilian resort town of Atafona amid the ruins of the latest houses destroyed by the sea, whose relentless rise has turned the local coastline into an apocalyptic landscape. 

The Atlantic Ocean advances an average of six meters a year in this small town north of Rio de Janeiro, and the ocean has already swallowed more than 500 houses, turning this once idyllic coastline into an underwater graveyard of wrecked structures.

The Brazilian town of Atafona and its 6,000 people have long suffered from extreme coastal erosion. Theirs is among the four percent of coastline worldwide that lose five meters or more each year.

According to the geologist Eduardo Bulhoes of Fluminense Federal University, the erosion process is being exacerbated by global warming, which is causing sea levels to rise and making currents and weather patterns more extreme.

The Paraiba do Sul river, whose mouth is at Atafona, has shrunk because of mining, agriculture and other activities that drain it upstream. "In the last 40 years, that has drastically reduced the river's volume, meaning it transports less sand to Atafona," says Bulhoes.

With less sand, the town's beaches have stopped regenerating naturally, ceding ground to the sea. And the coastal construction has only made the problem worse by stripping sand dunes and vegetation, the beaches' natural defenses.

Local authorities have studied several plans to curb the erosion, including building dikes to reduce the force of the ocean's waves and hauling sand from the river delta to the beach.

Bulhoes has proposed the latter, which is modeled on similar initiatives in the Netherlands, Spain and the United States.

But the projects exist only on paper so far.

(Cover image via screenshot.)

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