Is Mexico hiding human subterranean creatures or gory monsters underneath its high rises? Locals are claiming that to be true. Your childhood nightmares might just come true with the boogeyman creeping out of the cracks of the pavements. Locals are gathering around to watch this freaky phenomenon. National Geographic's recently uploaded video is already a rage on Twitter having garnered over 2K likes.
Morelos in Mexico is witnessing this crazy phenomenon and people simply cannot get over it. The cracked tarmac in the video can be seen moving up and down as if breathing heavily. It looks like as if monsters are trying to break through the pavements or maybe some extraterrestrial creatures? Remember that scene from Steven Spielberg's 2005 science fiction thriller War of the Worlds, where Tom Cruise witnesses a massive "Tripod" war machine emerge from the ground?
Sadly, science always comes up with brilliant findings putting an unfortunate end to our fantasy world.
The breathing pavements were spotted after Mexico faced the most destructive earthquake in September 2017. The phenomenon according to National Geographic was first spotted by local resident Rigoberto Lechuga Silva on September 19, minutes after the 7.1 M earthquake rippled the city. He first noticed a trembling lamp post and took out his phone to record the whole incident without further delay. Silva posted his video on YouTube which was then shared by various other social media platforms.
Geophysicist Mika McKinnon, in a Tweet, confirmed that liquefaction was the primary cause of the phenomenon. She stated that Mexico City was built on a watery terrain and in the 14CE the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan was built on an island which stood in the heart of the region. The area was later drained by the Spanish that led the sediments to settle down beneath the city. The sediments are still saturated by pockets of air and water.
Seismic waves rising from earthquakes make the sedimentary particles flow as liquid, in a process known as liquefaction. Susan Hough, a USGS seismologist told National Geographic that the heaving of the asphalt beneath is causing the liquefaction.
"During large earthquakes, you can get sandy soils venting to the surface in pulses," she said. "The twist here is that you have pavement over the ground."
After the 2011 earthquake, Japan too witnessed a similar incident of a breathing pavement. San Francisco too is susceptible to the process of liquefaction, according to a USGS report.
The process of liquefaction in big cities is extremely dangerous. It weakens the soil upon which the tall city structures are built, triggering landslides and leading to collapse of buildings or the ground, thus unleashing your most feared demons.
