Western Latvia boasts idyllic white sandy beaches. The area around Bernati is popular with visitors. But coastal erosion has increased, and swallowed homes.
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00:00A snow-covered coastline has replaced gardens. Here where the waves now almost crash into sand
00:12dunes, people once planted vegetables and fruit. But their houses are gone, washed away by the
00:19Baltic Sea. Here in Bernati, an area of natural beauty on Latvia's west coast, the sea has swept
00:27away entire villages. The area is especially vulnerable when a storm hits.
00:36I don't remember the exact year, but it was during the days of the Soviet Union. Everything here was
00:42washed away. The houses of three border guards stood here. They went too. It looked really bad.
00:49I slept in bed fully clothed that night. I almost had my boots on ready to run. The water was splashing
00:55over the fence. The storm that woke up Ernest Schliceris came one night in October 1967.
01:10The sea calmed down again in the morning and the water receded. But it kept happening. Over the years,
01:16the shoreline shifted inland by at least 100 meters. The 82-year-old's house is the only building that
01:24has survived. That's because he used the rubble from other homes to keep the waves at bay.
01:30Once the water came right up to here, right up to the stones here. The storm was so violent that the sea swept
01:46everything away. The entire yard, the sauna, everything ended up in the water. All of this was washed up later. You can see solid slabs over there.
01:57One reason why the coast is eroding so badly is the port in the city of Liapaya. It's 16 kilometers
02:06away and has changed the entire coastline. The remnants of a former military fortress built in the late 19th
02:15century now also bear witness to those changes, all caused by the port. Once built at a safe distance from
02:23the sea, the ruins are now in danger of being submerged.
02:31When the port was constructed more than 100 years ago, massive breakwaters were installed. The seabed
02:38was deepened to allow for ships to dock. This involved excavating huge amounts of sand and depositing it
02:45further out to sea. This altered the natural underwater movement of tons of sand along the entire west coast,
02:53ultimately causing the erosion. Researchers say another reason is climate change. It's not so much
03:01warming temperatures. It's more the extreme weather events. Storms are occurring more frequently now,
03:12and these can wash away the shore. They can also cause the wind direction to change, which in turn can make
03:21floods from the sea more severe. Geologist Liga Brunina, based in the capital Riga,
03:28has spent years studying Latvia's 500 kilometer long Baltic Sea coastline. But she's not worried.
03:36She says nature is just reclaiming what humans have taken away. She's much more concerned about the
03:43pollution of the Baltic Sea. There are many problems in the Baltic, but pollution is the biggest one.
03:52Sources of contamination range from old military equipment to microplastics. Erosion is unpleasant, yes.
04:01No one wants to lose their land, but it's a problem that could be addressed if it was approached sensibly.
04:07Someone would need to negotiate with the port authorities, persuade them to abandon the use of breakwaters,
04:15stop building more infrastructure in the port. That wouldn't be easy to achieve, but erosion really isn't the worst of it.
04:28Ernest Schliceris isn't panicking either.
04:30On the contrary, his property has now become a romantic peninsula surrounded by the stormy Baltic.
04:45It's a gem, but with an uncertain future.
04:48Future? What future?
05:01If there's to be a future, the shores would need reinforcing much more.
05:06I don't see much of a future here. If the sea comes from the other side one day, from behind,
05:13then all this will go.
05:18But it should last for his lifetime, he tells us with a laugh.
05:23He's hoping that a tourist or two might come by and want to stay overnight in this unique location.
05:36He himself lives mainly in the city, especially in winter.
05:42After all, it's better to be safe than sorry.