So, perhaps a dumb question, but the article mentions that 14 steps have been added to the base of the Angel of Independence monument, and the Wikipedia article mentions the same things:
> Originally, nine steps led to the base, but due to the sinking of the ground, an ongoing problem in Mexico City, fourteen more steps have been added.
So why didn't the monument itself also sink? Does it have piles going down to bedrock or something?
thousands of wooden piles to create a foundation with the first one even failing and the foundation being reconstructed
Also from wikipedia: ... "The commission determined that the foundations of the monument were poorly planned, so it was decided to demolish the structure."
So yes, it has an engineered foundation, a double-engineered foundation. The roads around it almost certainly do not. So it is plausible that the monument is not sinking as quickly.
Angels don't sink, they rise! :)
Depending of what stories you want to reference with this: Lucifer, Belial, Beelzebub all did not 'rise'.
Surely The Angel Of Independence must ascend, no? :)
I don't know the actual Christian theology, but at least in modern popular interpretations, Lucifer is the Angel of Independence, so that would suggest no!
The amount of subsidence is quite dramatic, up to 25 cm per year!
What are the practical consequences of this today, and what is being done to remedy this?
They are clearly not doing enough to remedy this; The only real solucion is to stop pumping the ground water, like I believe Japan did.
Miami has a similar issue, doesn't it?
so does Jakarta and few other cities in the world.
I really can't believe that an issue discovered in 1925 still isn't solved. A kind of issue which wont take a Nobel prize to be solved. This is sad.
Many, many problems have good practical solutions that are politically impossible to implement.
What solution? The earth is constantly moving and churning. The article states the city is built on an aquifer.
Mexico City was built on top of a lake that was dried to facilitate the expansion of the city.
> What solution
The nobel prize winner hopefully figures that out
For the uninitiated, ISRO -> Indian Space Research Organization
My understanding is that Mexico (the government and the people) are basically incapable of actually fixing anything in their country so I'm wondering how something like this would ever be addressed?
Have you visited Mexico City? Your view of Mexico is likely colored by media (particularly social media) and the on-the-ground reality can be quite different.
While it’s not the best run place, it is perfectly capable of large scale infra projects and state capacity and capability is pretty well developed.
> the on-the-ground reality can be quite different
Mexico -> USA is by far the largest country-to-country migration corridor in the world by volume. So I doubt the "on the ground reality" is actually much different than what the media reports. There's a reason for it.
Couldn't you say that about pretty much any government and people?
Cloudflare: verification rejected. Accessing from Japan.
Thank you very much, Cloudlare.
I get that the article is primarily about the satellite capabilities, but it's rather annoying it doesn't mention what the future impact of the subsidence might be.
I think that it’s quite responsible not to speculate on something they’re not an expert on.
It’s exactly the sort of news bite that catastrophists glom onto.
This is responsible journalism.
> I think that it’s quite responsible not to speculate on something they’re not an expert on.
"Recent satellite maps show Mexico City getting closer to hell at alarming rate"
They could just call a geologist and ask, or cite some published works on the topic. It's not responsible, it's lazy.
This is a phys.org "article". They're usually just rehashed press releases, and this one is particularly bad - it's literally just the NASA press release with the last 2 paragraphs chopped off. https://www.nasa.gov/missions/nisar/us-indian-space-mission-...
It breaks water lines which increases the water problem even faster. On one side because its expensive to fix and on the other side because small leaks lead to massive water losses you don't find fast or easy.
Also broken mains lead to sinkholes: https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cj9zex1r3kjo
There are also abandoned mines under parts of the city which also contributes to hazardous conditions.
Nor does it say how much subsidence the satellite documented.
There's this under the picture.
> New data from NISAR shows where Mexico City and its environs subsided by up to a few centimeters per month (shown in blue) between Oct. 25, 2025, and Jan. 17, 2026
The labels on the map were also confusing, and at first because of the relative positioning of the texts identifying the airport and the angel I thought up was East and not North, although a closer inspection made things clearer (and yes, up is North).