Foulness Island level, which was above the danger level for this part of the Essex coast. This level in itself was not a danger to the island, as the sea walls had been raised and strengthened between 1951 and 1952 by the War Office, and were above mean sea level. However, the high water was accompanied by strong winds, creating large waves, which broke over the top of the defences, washing away the earth banks on the inland side of the walls. Two sections of the wall breached, from Rugwood Head to Asplin's Head on the eastern side of the island, and
Piracy off the coast of Somalia some financiers and former militiamen later began to fund pirate activities, splitting the profits evenly with the pirates. In most of the hijackings, the pirates have not harmed their prisoners. Combined Task Force 150, a multinational coalition task force, subsequently took on the role of fighting piracy off the coast of Somalia by establishing a Maritime Security Patrol Area (MSPA) within the Gulf of Aden. However, many foreign naval vessels chasing pirates were forced to break off when the pirates entered Somali territorial waters. To address this, in June 2008, following a letter from the Somalian Transitional Federal Government (TFG)