Ivory Coast tourist haven battles coastal erosion and rogue waves

A view of the ruins of a hotel under construction, that was recently abandoned after being destroyed by a sudden rise in water level which damaged several hotels and houses in the coastal towns east of Abidjan in August, in Grand Bassam, Ivory Coast September 20, 2023.REUTERS/Luc Gnago

ASSINIE, Ivory Coast (Reuters) - On a shrinking strip of beach in southeast Ivory Coast, hotel owner Habib Hassan Nassar has to stack thousands of sandbags each week to protect his property from the rising sea.

Thanks to the metres-high sandbag barricade, the Kame Surf Camp hotel clings to its section of beach in the resort of Assinie, even as the waves hem the hotel in on three sides and, in a recent surge, devastated the businesses of its neighbours.