Dubai's artificial islands "sinking"

Dubai's "The World," a collection of artificial islands designed to resemble a map of planet Earth, is reportedly sinking back into the water. From the Telegraph:

The islands were intended to be developed with tailor-made hotel complexes and luxury villas, and sold to millionaires. They are off the coast of Dubai and accessible by yacht or motor boat.
Now their sands are eroding and the navigational channels between them are silting up, the British lawyer for a company bringing a case against the state-run developer, Nakheel, has told judges.
"The islands are gradually falling back into the sea," Richard Wilmot-Smith QC, for Penguin Marine, said. The evidence showed "erosion and deterioration of The World islands", he added.-

The World is sinking: Dubai islands 'falling into the sea' [Telegraph via Inhabitat]

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abulafia

Quelle surprise.
I wonder how the full-scale reproduction of Lyon old-town is going:
http://tinyurl.com/68dz4wv
Anonymous

We are now seeing the failure of excessive audacity. I guess the next thing that will happen is that the Burj Khalifa will close down permanently or the Palm Islands will also sink into the sea
Daggar

No Ozymandias references yet? For shame.
bklynchris

btw-if my memory serves me correctly, one “development” company smashed though a barrier reef surrounding Turks and Caicos to be able to bring in heavy equipment to make another dredged luxury island filled with luxury villas. I think it was called Star Island.

This island building business has always flummoxed me.
waltbosz

My favorite quote from one of these island builder guys: “doing the coastlines was always my favourite. Used to have endless fun doing the little bits in fjords”
- Anonymous
  
  Um, that’s from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
- Anonymous
  
  and the answer is 42.
gwailo_joe

Right. Sorry. . .just got here.

“And on the pedestal these words appear:â€¨
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:â€¨
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains.
Round the decayâ€¨
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bareâ€¨
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Bye-bye level sands! Nature always gets the last laugh. . .
Lobster

Good riddance. This was the first eyesore that could be seen from orbit. Even if it had gone perfectly it would have been unforgivably tacky.
jjsaul

Like navigable rivers and tourist beaches in the US, continuing active maintenance is required to keep the properties usable.

Suing the developers for reneging on contractual duties to perform that maintenance seems perfectly reasonable.

Of course, I feel the same satisfaction seeing it fall apart that everyone else does.

I’d like to see dotting those sandbars the buried-alive heads of all the neocon looters who planned on Dubai being their haven from which to watch the world burn once they sapped the rest of us dry.

It’s the Galt Archipelago.
Anonymous

I guess the shoulda used rocks, instead of sand.
Rajio

From artificial islands to artificial swamp in record time
Anonymous

I don’t feel bad for anyone that bought a piece of the artificial islands. You can mimic what nature takes thousands of years to accomplish in just a few years. Morons!
Anonymous

Hendrix, baby!

“Castles made of sand
melt into the sea
Eventually”

Ahhoooooooooooggaaaa!
Mister N

did the engineers never learned the dissolution of sand castles when they kids ?
cjp

This is a golden opportunity for a developer to build a series of bathyshpere-inspired Steampunk condos, anchored to the submerged remnants of Nakheel’s God complex.
obeyken

what a great potential this has for a time-lapse movie!
Anonymous

your post made me globber, if only for a second
Anonymous

All they have to do isput more sand. Let’s go people
Remez

Wow, it’s the board game “Forbidden Treasure” brought to life.
chgoliz

What God hath brought together, let no Man tear asund…

Oh. Never mind.
Teller

At least money can be saved on the stationery: The Water World.
ebarrett3

I see SNES’s Koopa Beach in Mario Kart….anyone? anyone?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJGay0Kq_RE (skip to around 0:45 in)
muteboy

When the bubble burst, people stopped buying the islands, and the developers just didn’t bother planting grass or whatever.
alllie

Matthew 7:26…a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

Surely you don’t have to read the New Testament to figure that out.

It’s just such a waste. They might as well have thrown their money away.

Or let us keep it.
steelconsult

All over the world, developers, people with new affluence, people with “position” are making decisions like this. Some from greed, some from a total lack of consequences from their actions, some from just plain stupidity. In some areas buildings are falling from the wrong selection or specified cement, without sufficient support. In these cases people are sacrificed. In other areas like the islands it was a play toy. Over time what is going to happen to the structures built on recovered land and how many people will be sacrificed and the developers or owners say “Oh Well”?
All over the Emirates this is taking place. Is it known that their are no building codes in existance in that area of the world? Do you think that foreign developers and contractors are above taking advantage of that situation, perhaps going bankrupt after a project with Swiss bank accounts and no long term guarantees? Do the people in-charge really care if anything happens?
It is not just in the Emirates, as independent engineers, we’ve seen this all over the world and the only ones who suffer are the people. The politicians are paid to overlook this, and the developers bottom line dictates their concern.
We are a group of independent engineers related to every discipline who have become bound together without a cross to bear since we are retired and want to give back. If you need us or want us let us know through going going.
InsertFingerHere

Give some thought about who is NOT getting paid in all this the guys at the very bottom of the food chain, the migrant workers. Most already pay a fee to land a job over there, then have all sorts of passport-hostage issues with the working conditions. I’m surprised not more is published about the shit that goes on there.
mtdna

Well, I guess it’s realistic…
Anonymous

Apparently, buyers did not learn anything from their childhoods’days building sand castles by the beach.
jfeit

Tough luck, assholes.

Its awfully hard to muster any deeper sympathy for those involved.
enishmarati

Well of course they are. That’s the first thing I wondered about when I first read of them being built. So they’re going to sue the developer for the natural susceptibility of sand to the natural force of erosion? Fantastic. Glad someone has their priorities straight around here.
- MatanArie
  
  The islands were designed to withstand the erosion forces.
  I’ve seen very complex projections and calculations of the movement of water between the islands, taking into account various currents, tides and storms throughout the year.
  The islands are protected by a series of underwater concrete ridges designed to weaken incoming currents and waves.
  The design even takes into account the stagnation of the sea water, and the system is designed that water that’s entered the system will be able to flow out with the currents within 3 days.
  
  It seems the designers miscalculated, or based their projections on incomplete data.
  
  The nearby Palm Islands artificial archipelago is a bit less ambitious, but has managed to withstand the tides for 10 years, so it’s not just “Of course it’ll be washed away!”. They’ll probably come up with some way of stabilizing the project eventually.
  - Halloween Jack
    
    Of course, things are fine. There’s no real estate glut that’s exceptional even by post-bubble standards. Islamic laws don’t interfere with expats’ lifestyles. Everything’s just fine.
Anonymous

While hiking I recently met a Dubai resident (UK commonwealth expat) who explained Dubai. He said it was like a veneer over a slum. Fancy hotels built with substandard material, shoddy workmanship. HE said that it looks great from a distance but up close it is all about peeling paint and light switches that don’t work. The illustration that struck home was when he said “It’s just like an amusement park that stopped being popular a decade ago, glitzy decay”
Anonymous

Oh no! The poor rich bastards. My heart is bleeding for them.
Moriarty

I like the one, sad, slowly sinking show island. Very Arrested Development.
- dagfooyo
  
  Yup, the developers in Dubai never should’ve listened to Rita.
Anonymous

2012- the end of “the world”
RadioSilence

is it just the sand blowing away? why didn’t they seed the islands with grass as soon as they realised they wouldn’t be built on any time soon?
IronEdithKidd

Bwah ahh haa ha!
Brainspore

Live like a supervillain, die like a supervillain.
Anonymous

Solution: 1. Take a speed boat. 2. Top speed. 3. Ram into and on top of one of the islands, anchor down. 4. That’s your new home. Should that island sink find another target island and start again from Step 1.
Anonymous

in your face engineering innovation
Brainspore

Too bad they didn’t pay heed to the most musically gifted civil engineer of the 1960s.
- Anonymous
  
  That made me laugh out loud!! Hilarious!!!
IamInnocent

Trickle down economics.
RebNachum

The hubris, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind…
Anonymous

Dubai is sort of ghetto fabulous. Their national hoopty is still rolling on 24′s but the fender is dinged up and the muffler is smoking.
Anonymous

Sad to learn that these artificial or man- made islands are sinking….never built on unprotected sands, one has to make changes to the normal coastal and foreshore currents to build a natural sandbank, otherwise disrupting the natural course of current or mother- nature which has built the very shape of the Dubai Coast will take its revenge on the new artificial islands, one has to listen to the waves, the wind in order to understand the art of nature…too bad these are the very simple & basic principles that many reputable engineers fail to learn, and it does come with a cost!

I strongly recommend to those developers in Dubai to consider investing on such property developments in small islands like Tuvalu, the Maldives or even Fiji.

They could built reef- resort properties in 6 – 12 months very easily and more environment friendly, and recover their capital costs for such investment in less than 2 years or even less.

Feel free to contact the address for more advise, but this is the reality., not a fantasy…all the best!!
kpkpkp

The foolish man builds his house upon the sand…
g0d5m15t4k3

I hope when they go to court the judge says “Duh” and then “now you get to pay everyone’s legal fees!”.
- bklynchris
  
  Ya got to it before I did! DUH! Is right! Our spp is so doomed, beyond doomed…..