A giant sinkhole swallowed a stretch of street on Mexico City's east side, with one man feared killed and 30 families evacuated, authorities said on Monday.
Even in a city where historic buildings regularly lean, crack, collapse or sink below sidewalk level due to excessive water extraction and unstable soil, the 14m-deep sinkhole -- which measures about 15m in diameter -- came as a shock.
It began as a giant crack late on Saturday in the eastern Iztapalapa borough and rapidly worsened; the ground simply collapsed, swallowing a car, the facade of a one-story brick building and pavement.
A young man who was watching the spectacle also fell in on Saturday, and emergency workers were digging with hand tools to try to recover his body, authorities said.
His age was not immediately known.
"The truth is that it is very highly unlikely" that the victim could still be found alive, Mexico City Civil Defense Secretary Elias Moreno said. "But as long as that possibility exists, we are digging very carefully to avoid hurting him if he is alive."
Fissures from the sinkhole extend outward for about 500m, raising the danger of additional collapses. Thirty families whose homes lie near those cracks have been taken to shelters prepared by city authorities.
Moreno said there were about 200 more cracks, fissures and sinkholes in Iztapalapa, which authorities are trying to fill with cement.
He blamed them on the city's triple problem of earthquakes, which cause cracks to appear; the excessive extraction of ground water, which causes sinking, and torrential rains, which make surface soil more likely to collapse.
"All these factors came together to create these problems we have," Moreno said.
Mexico City gets about two-thirds of its drinking water from wells, and the city sinks an average of 7cm to 10cm each year.
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
‘DOWNSIZE’: The Trump administration has initiated sweeping cuts to US government-funded media outlets in a move critics said could undermine the US’ global influence US President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday began making deep cuts to Voice of America (VOA) and other government-run, pro-democracy programming, with the organization’s director saying all VOA employees have been put on leave. On Friday night, shortly after the US Congress passed its latest funding bill, Trump directed his administration to reduce the functions of several agencies to the minimum required by law. That included the US Agency for Global Media, which houses Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Asia and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. On Saturday morning, Kari Lake, a former Arizona gubernatorial and US
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
RSS