A disaster in 2003 serves as a stark reminder of the precarity of life in Saint-Louis.
To relieve flooding from the Senegal River, authorities dug a trench through the Langue de Barbarie peninsula, just south of the city, to let the water escape to the ocean.
It worked, but the 4-meter trench quickly widened to more than 3 miles, becoming the new mouth of the river and bringing the ocean right to people’s homes.
Caption: Landsat images courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey