Posted on 07/29/2007 2:38:38 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
(MEXICO CITY) — As if life-shortening pollution, hours-long traffic jams and kidnappings weren't bad enough, Mexico City residents now have to worry about the earth opening up and swallowing them.
As the summer rainy season hits, concern is growing that hundreds of cracks, holes and fractures that line this city could open up with disastrous consequences in a metropolitan area of 20 million people.
The fear became reality this month in a Mexico City slum when heavy rainfall ruptured a fissure in the street, swallowing a car and an onlooker, who was killed when he tumbled into the muddy depths more than 60 feet below.
Mexico City's latest urban ill stems from its geography and history. Built on a drained lake bed after the Spanish destroyed the Venice-like city of Tenochtitlan, Mexico City has been sinking steadily for centuries, falling the equivalent of a three-story building since 1900.
At the same time, the sinking megalopolis has been slaking its thirst by draining the underground aquifer beneath the city. And if that wasn't enough, the city also sits over a maze of geological fault lines and abandoned mines.
The underground cracks and crevices are exacerbated by rain, which also threatens to overwhelm the city's faulty drainage system.
A massive pipe is meant to funnel waste out of the bowl-like valley over which Mexico City is sprawled. Experts say a heavy rain could trigger a flood of sewage.
"When the Aztecs moved here, they could have never imagined the problems (this location) would generate," said Martín Argueta of the Mexican Geological Service. "We aren't going to get rid of these cracks, but we need to learn how to manage the risk."
Much of the danger stems from the unregulated growth in Mexico City that saw makeshift neighborhoods extend into the most fragile areas of the valley.
Government officials often promoted the unregulated growth in return for captive votes. Engineers have been calling for more building restrictions, but with most of the metro area carpeted with homes and businesses, it could be too late.
Perhaps most at risk is the sprawling neighborhood of Iztapalapa. Bigger than the Mexican cities of Guadalajara, Jalisco, and Monterrey, Nuevo León, Iztapalapa is home to some of Mexico City's poorest — and unluckiest — residents.
More than 200 cracks threaten 10,000 homes in Iztapalapa, because of a combination of underground faults and the aquifer draining.
But despite all the water sucked from the ground beneath them, Iztapalapa residents suffer chronic shortages of drinking water, which often must be trucked in.
For nearly 30 years, David Pérez Figueroa has lived next to what became a deadly sinkhole. Throughout his neighborhood of unfinished concrete homes and narrow streets, buildings pitch forward at odd angles and cracks spread up walls.
Pérez said he and other neighbors worried constantly about what began as a crack in the street about eight years ago.
"We told the authorities, we sent letters, we met with officials, but they never paid attention to us," Pérez said. "They knew this problem existed, but they never fixed it."
Pérez was hosting a graduation party at the hall he rents for special events when the earth opened on July 7. One of his guest's cars slipped into the crevice. He said he yelled at 19-year-old Jorge Ramirez to move away from the widening hole, but Ramirez fell to his death while peering over the edge.
City workers will fill the opening with bentonite, a clay-based substance that expands when it comes in contact with water. Officials in Iztapalapa say they have only enough money to fill a small percentage of the neighborhood's 200 cracks.
The city's infrastructure woes have stoked a feud between the conservative federal government and the left-leaning city government.
It is more fallout from last year's bitterly contested presidential election, which pitted former Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador against Felipe Calderón. Relations between Calderón, who eventually won the election, and new Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, widely considered López Obrador's protégé, have been frosty ever since.
Calderón has used the situation to sharply criticize city leaders, who he says haven't invested enough in infrastructure improvements. City officials say they are frustrated that federal officials haven't released disaster relief funds to fill in the cracks and abandoned mines or allowed the city to restructure its debt, which would free up more money for improvements.
Ebrard defended the city's track record, saying it is fixing its drainage system, including building four pumping stations to aid the flow of waste out of the city.
But as the politicians bicker, Pérez says residents in Iztapalapa continue to hold their breath every time it rains.
How can the capital threaten itself?
HA HA HA, I just could't get past this line...LMAO
Why(?) it fits perfect.
Mother Nature trying to flush her toilet again
Bordered by two bodies of water in sub-tropical, sun-drenched paradise, you'd think Mexico would be one of the richest nations in the world.
Sinkholes are kind of a metaphor for all of Mexico.
This Mexican is from the same family as our typical liberal, totally ignorant and clueless. That's like asking the "authorities" to fix climate variations...
All of Mexico City was built on an old lake/swamp.
The remarkable thing to realize is that more problems like this don't pop up constantly.
Well, that’s what you get when you build an entire city on top of a lake.
how come our wizards of industry have never went to mehico to enact an economic recovery plan?
A sinkhole from a sh!#hole, who would have thought it? The city was built on an ancient lake/marsh area, what do they expect?
[cue Peter Stormare as Wolfgang the VW Engineer]
“You know vat ve gonna do nowwwww?”
“No, Señor.”
“Unpimp your auto!”
Wow they still have that problem in Los Angeles? Didn’t know that.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who immediately drew a comparison to New Orleans.
Of course, it really is much worse in Mexico City since they are sitting at the base of that huge volcano that is long overdue for a major eruption. I’m sure the more that thing shakes it just settles that sh!thole even further.
Are there no geologists with a braincell outside of the US? Why on earth would a city that is already built in a lakebed continue to pump water out of the aquifer directly under it? The part that really bothers me is that it will be our tax dollars that get poured into the impending hole to try to rescue survivors and rebuild for them.
It's the Aztecs' fault!
...but not before we get lectured by the U.N. on how stingy we are, and didn't provide enough assistance.
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