Why Mexico City’s water crisis is causing it to sink
On a recent morning, visitors wandered around Mexico City’s Metropolitan Cathedral, Latin America’s oldest — and one of its largest. Walking from chamber to chamber, tourists snapped images of dramatic ceiling-high altars, soaring columns and sculptures. But there’s another unintended detail that stands out: the cathedral is leaning. … This sinking, which is known as land subsidence, crops up across the world. While it can be subtle in many places — it pushes land down around an inch or two a year in much of the U.S. — the rates in Mexico City are some of the highest in the world. Some areas in Mexico City are slipping as fast as 20 inches a year in recent decades, according to researchers. Overall, the clay layers under the soil have compressed by 17 percent in the last century.