Asian coastal cities sinking fast: survey

Sprawling coastal cities in South and Southeast Asia are sinking faster than elsewhere in the world, leaving tens of millions of people more vulnerable to rising sea levels, a new study said.

Vietnam's most-populous urban centre and main business hub, Ho Chi Minh City, was sinking an average of 16.2 millimetres annually, topping the study's survey of satellite data from 48 large coastal cities around the world.

The southern Bangladeshi port of Chittagong was second on the list, with the western Indian city Ahmedabad, Indonesian capital Jakarta and Myanmar's commercial hub Yangon also sinking more than 20 millimetres in peak years.

Rapid urbanisation has seen these cities draw heavily on groundwater to service their burgeoning populations, according to research by Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU), published in the journal Nature Sustainability last week.

More than one billion people will live in coastal cities at risk of rising sea levels by 2050, according to UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.