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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."
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As in the days of Noah...
