Indonesia: Rising sea levels threaten villages

Almost 42 million homes in the coastal regions of Indonesia are under threat by rising sea levels.

Water levels are rising at the rate of eight millimetres a year in many places.

Most of the affected rely on the sea for their livelihoods, so they cannot move away.

In Bahagia village (“Happy” village), half the population has had to move away, and the shrimp ponds where residents worked have been destroyed.

The people of Bahagia fear that unless the government intervenes to build a dam, the entire village will be washed away.

Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen reports from Bekasi, West Java.