VISAKHAPATNAM : HIGH tides at Rushikonda Beach on Monday damaged the make-shift shops, eating into a part of the coastal pavement. Dubbing the high tide as a local phenomenon, experts blamed it on the south-westerly winds. “Some waves and high tides have different magnitudes, sometimes they change their direction on one side, triggering coastal erosion. The South-Westerly winds, which is associated with the South-West monsoon, at times has high impact on a particular point as the tides go high. This was what happened at Rushikonda on Monday,” explains OSR Bhankumar, a retired Oceanography professor.
These South-West monsoons are also associated with upwelling, a phenomenon in which winds blowing across the ocean surface push the water to the seaside and the bottom water rises up, triggering the turbulence. “We come to Rushikonda once in a while, but now we find it very unsafe owing to such incidents (high tides). We now feel scared to get into waters,” said Sailaja, who visited the beach on Monday.