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Location Atafona, Brazil
Disaster Rio de Janeiro coastal erosion, 2019 -23
Born in Campos dos Goytacazes, Sônia Ferreira spent her childhood vacations in the seaside town of Atafona. After she and her husband married, they built a summer house there and in the late 1990s, she moved there permanently. Now 79, retired and widowed, Sônia still lives in Atafona with her daughter, where coastal erosion has caused the destruction of 500 houses in recent decades. More are at risk, with the sea expected to push further inland by up to 150 metres in the next 30 years.
When we built the house in 1978, we couldn’t see the sea. There were two blocks in front of the house, then the Avenida Atlântica, which was asphalted and had a sidewalk, and then a huge stretch of sand before you finally got to the beach. We never imagined that one day it would reach our house.
Sônia Ferreira says her children started saying she should move as the sea advanced. Photograph: Thiago Freitas/Contramaré Comunicação
Right in front of us was the only apartment block in Atafona, the four-storey Julinho building, which I watched being built. It was destroyed by the sea in 2008. In a way, the rubble protected my house, but the sea was slowly advancing. My children started saying I should move out. I followed the state of the tides as if I were a fisher, because I was thinking about staying.
In 2019, I was on the balcony of my bedroom when my neighbour in front called me, asking me to film the sea, which was beating hard against the side of her house. The base of the wall was already gone, because the sea was taking the sand from beneath the ground floor. I filmed it on my phone, then sent it to her, and when I looked up, I saw water coming in through the part of the wall that had fallen. It’s like living in a sandcastle.
To stop the advance, we thought about putting stones in front of the wall, but that would harm the neighbours, even if it protected me a little. Because the sea doesn’t stop coming, it just goes around.
We installed fencing, with large metal sheets, to slow it down. My bedroom, which was closest to the sea, already had a huge crack in the wall from leaks. When the fencing was touching the house, we had no choice left. So, as we had a small house in the back, where the housekeeper used to live, I moved in there.
Sônia Ferreira holds a picture of family members. Photograph: Thiago Freitas/Contramaré Comunicação
The sea was coming closer and closer, and it was so painful to see my house being destroyed gradually. In 2022, together with my children, I decided to demolish it. It was a very difficult time. I’d just found out I had ovarian cancer and needed to have both ovaries removed, I couldn’t get out of bed. It took three months to knock it down.
After that, I kept on living in the small house at the back, until October this year. Then I had to leave there as well, because lots of sand started coming in.
I remember when I was still living there, I’d pass my hand over my face and feel sand on it. Dunes began to form on the street and one reached the wall by the entrance of the house. Then another huge dune formed in the garden. I can no longer open the main gate, and the garage gate only opens a little, because there’s so much sand on the path, no cars can get in.
I asked a guy with a tractor to remove the sand, but he said that I was throwing money away, because every time he’d take it away, the wind would blow, and the dune would form again. The north-east wind here is naturally strong, but now it’s even stronger.
About the series
This is climate breakdown was put together in collaboration with the Climate Disaster Project at University of Victoria, Canada, and the International Red Cross. Read more.
Production team
Today I can talk about it more easily, but the experience itself was very painful. I already felt this way when I saw the suffering of other people, the community, friends who were losing their homes. I lived through it and felt those emotions.
But when it happens to you, it turns everything upside down. It’s a whirlwind of emotions. I started to remember my children when they were young, my family and everyone who lived there with us. It’s not the material goods I felt I lost, but rather the moments I had in that house. You can’t rebuild that context elsewhere, just go to another house and build another story.
But despite the feeling of loss, I feel I’m a happy person. I live with my children and grandchildren, and I have lots of friends here in Atafona. The relationships here are pure. People like you for who you are, not what you have. I have a 13-year-old granddaughter who likes to sit and talk to me. One day she asked me: “Grandma, how do you manage to have such peace, as though everything is always good for you?” I replied that we learn throughout life from the things God gives us.
My connection with Atafona is so strong that when I lived in Rio, I’d feel stressed amid all that activity and noise. “I need to recharge my batteries in Atafona,” I’d say, and I’d come here. When I arrived, I’d leave my shoes in the car and go for a walk on the beach. After two days here, usually Saturdays and Sundays, I’d come back a new person, renewed. I think it’s something spiritual and emotional.
Aerial view of a house that fell the day before at Atafona beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2022. Photograph: Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images
And it’s not just me, everyone who lives or has a house here still loves Atafona, despite this disaster. There is a sense of wellbeing, an intimate feeling, a happiness, a joy so overflowing that when you’re here, no one wants to leave. Some people who lose their homes don’t want to leave and are left living in the rubble, which is a danger.
We have an organisation called SOS Atafona, of which I am currently the president. We continue hoping that something will be done here. We thought that some erosion control could be carried out, as has been done in other states and cities.
But, in a way, we know that it’s our fault, as human beings, because we don’t take care of the environment as we should. Historically, the months of March and August were when the sea is roughest here, when we knew it would advance. But nowadays it’s not like that. It can be at any time.
This testimonial was produced with the help of the Climate Disaster Project; thanks to Sean Holman, Aldyn Chwelos, Darren Schuettler, Ricardo Garcia, Cristine Gerk, Tracy Sherlock, Lisa Taylor.
Translated by James Young
Design and development by Harry Fischer and Pip Lev