February 19, 2025, drone landscape of houses belonging to Pasijah and other buildings in Rejosari Senik. Image source: Reuters
Rejosari Senik is a small village in the Demak district of Java province in central Indonesia. In the 1970s, the distance between the small villages of the Java Sea and the nearest coastline was about 7 km. Today, the land where the small village is located is permanently underwater.
Even by the mid-2000s, Rejosari Senik was disconnected from mainland Java through erosion. Today, several buildings still occupying the small village are still on stilts.
Its people used to grow rice and vegetables. As global warming caused local sea levels to rise slowly and steadily, they turned to fish ponds, but many of them moved further inland to find new homes and better jobs.
But even by 2020, Rejosari Senik is reportedly wearing the look of a ghost town: the only reason why it’s not actually a person is that it still counts.
One of them is Pasijah, a 55-year-old woman who told Reuters in February: “I do have everything to stay here and my feelings for the house are still there.” Her family raised the stilts, sometimes three times a year, keeping it above the rising water.
Although Indonesia plans to build a 700-km long sea wall to prevent sea levels from rising, Pasijah and her family have also planted 15,000 mangrove trees a year for two decades to prevent tides from flooding her home.
publishing – April 20, 2025 02:22 pm ist
