More than 700 people are homeless in Liberia after ocean waves slammed coastline communities, destroying more than 100 homes and other structures.

“We have been confronted with increasing high tides…wiping away most human settlements along the beaches,” Daniel Clarke, head of the Liberian Red Cross Society, told IRIN.

He called the situation “a disaster”.

Between 30 July and 2 August, rising sea levels damaged homes and property in fishing villages in Grand Bassa, Grand Cape Mount and Montsserado counties, according to a recent report by the UN mission in Liberia (UNMIL).

Since then, on 14 August, a wave wiped out eight houses in a shanty town in the capital, Monrovia, leaving 86 people without shelter.

Clarke said the Red Cross has so far registered more than 700 people displaced by the coastal destruction and the count continues.

Relocating communities

Families living along Liberia’s coast are encouraged to move to safer areas.

“We tried to relocate those affected in Cape Mount County but they are not keen on [moving],” the Red Cross’s Clarke said.

“They insist on having their shelters near the ocean because fishing is their only livelihood,” he said.

Sand mining

The war-torn country’s massive reconstruction effort is also contributing to a general problem of coastal erosion, experts say, as more and more people mine sand for building.

The UN Development Programme’s report on Liberia’s environment released in June called beach sand mining “one of the most serious threats to the coastline and marine environment” in the country.

In the report UNDP noted that the government lacked regulatory measures to guard against the practice.

Liberia’s deputy information minister, Gabriel Williams, told IRIN the government would soon put a ban on sand mining in some coastal areas.

The country's top environment official recently told reporters people are not aware of the damage they are doing. “Most people are not educated on the negative aspect of taking away sand from beaches,” Ben Donnie, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said.

Media campaign

Local newspapers and radio stations have recently urged citizens to help stave off coastal erosion.

“The continuous destruction caused by the sea erosion taking place is quite troubling and if nothing is done about the situation, half of the dry land of the country would soon be washed away”, said a 15 August editorial in The Inquirer newspaper.

The editors call for a massive awareness campaign.