Climate change naysayers and rapid urban development advocates may trash the fears of coastal flooding, but the threat to the city’s shoreline is real and at hand. Large settlements of 2-3-storey slum tenements of Cuffe Parade’s Machhimar Nagar No. 5 — a colony of fisherfolk — are allegedly gobbling up land, leaving the area open to flooding.

The horizontal and vertical growth of allegedly illegal slums in Machhimar Nagar No. 5 has raised Cuffe Parade residents’ hackles. Pics/Datta Kumbhar