"The Guna people of Panama's sinking Gardi Sugdub island are planning to move to the mainland to escape rising sea levels".
"GARDI SUGDUB - When the storm surges and high tides engulf the tiny, overpopulated Panamanian island of Gardi Sugdub, Marcia Hernández watches helplessly as her hut along the shoreline fills with seawater.
"Flooding is getting worse, the winds are getting stronger," said Hernández, who was born on the island, one of about 350 in the Guna Yala or San Blas archipelago off Panama's Caribbean coast and home to the Indigenous Guna people.
"I can't do anything but wait until the water goes away," Hernández told Context, standing on a mud floor she has shored up with stones against the ankle-high seawater.
Rising ocean levels caused by global warming and decades of coral reef destruction have combined with seasonal rains and more severe storms to submerge the island for days on end."
Anastasia Moloney reports for Thomson Reuters Foundation April 9, 2024.
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