Thursday 15 July 2010

The Story of Rawai Wall 2009 to 2013


Scroll down the timeline to follow the developing story of Rawai's Sea Wall.


9.21 am April 1 2009



Somewhere around noon April 1 2009.



April 16 2009 Still waiting for work to start.



May 5 2009 Things start to progress.



May 7 2009 Now why didn't they do it like this in the first place? It looks a lot nicer!



So is this the end of the story?


April 4th 2010 One Year Later......



As the beach side restaurants strive to keep the beach in place....


the local boatmen look on in amusement....



knowing that all this will have a limited lifespan.....



despite how deep they dig.....



all it will take is a few strong waves.....



to take down the rest of the wall!

April 4th 2010 we are all waiting in anticipation...

July 15th 2010
but as I write this blog, miraculously the wall is still standing!

And another year later!

It is now 31st March 2011 and in follow-up to the post of 15th July 2010 and one year after the original collapse, heavy seas finally brought down another section of the Rawai wall.



On July 6th 2011 progress has been made - well - if you could call it that! 



A safety barrier has been installed for one part of the danger area, and later in the day some red tape and been put around to stop people walking into the abyss.

But the sad thing is what the sign says - 
"The ownership rights of the land in this area is currently in the process of investigation."
And so we wait............





25th August 2011  
A Sad Day in The Story of Rawai's Sea Wall


Heavy rain and strong wind at around noon today were probably the last factor to bring down one of the old pine trees that line Rawai's beach front, and are a symbol of Rawai Beach to both locals and tourists alike.






"The ownership rights of the land in this area is currently in the process of investigation."


Locals have been watching the lack of progress in repairing damage caused by erosion, as over the months the situation has been worsened by strong monsoon waves. It is only about a meter before the erosion will reach the road and with one tree down already no doubt the other trees will be in danger. (See below for earlier post about Rawai Wall from July 12th 2010 and March 31st 2011)






29th September 2011
Another Sad Day in The Story of Rawai's Sea Wall



After strong waves over the last few days, 
another piece of Rawai's pedestrian promenade has collapsed

October 6th 2011
Not much further and the road will disappear too!


12th March 2012
(2012 - The year that the Mayan Calender came to an end and the world was thought to be heading for disaster)

Strong waves last night felled yet another tree on Rawai Beach. This followed a similar event about 2 months earlier when the tree to the middle of the photo came down and the sea ate a large chunk out of the beach. It seems Rawai is heading for disaster and no-one is doing anything about it!



1st May 2013 - 4 years and one month later!

Sadly things are only getting worse...............................



The first part of the wall fell down in 2009 closely followed by the trees as you will see from the earlier part of this post. Due to lack of repairs the local restaurants have had to build wooden panel floors over the felled trees and broken wall and the remaining space is as you see here. Iron reinforcing rods remain in the broken concrete waiting to injure anyone unlucky enough to tread on one at high tide when boarding a boat. It horrifies me to see children swimming here, often tourists who are unaware of the dangers that lie below.

I took that photo this morning, but what I saw on my return to Rawai in the evening sadden me more......


a large hole has appeared in the pavement due to sea erosion cutting away the beach below and no organisation has taken responsibility to do anything about it. Just wait until the road breaks perhaps?



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