IF THERE is a race for which cities on the planet have more skyscrapers, New York City is probably in the top five, with Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China being its closest rivals.
Spanning over 780sq km, the densely populated megalopolis has over 6,000 highrises, of which 274 are considered skyscrapers.
Generally, a highrise over 150m is considered a skyscraper. But this feat in modern architecture and engineering has come at a price.
In recent years, many scientists and ordinary folk have come to question if New York City is sinking under all that weight.
Is there truth to their claim?
VERDICT:
TRUE
According to a new study published in the Earth’s Future journal, the city is sinking at approximately 1mm-2mm every year.
Some areas in New York are dipping at double this rate, the researchers have warned.
Their calculation found that the buildings in the city weigh a total of 76.2 million tonnes, roughly equivalent to 140 million elephants.
The study did, however, note that there is also a natural sinking effect occurring along much of the US east coast, which includes New York.
But this dip into the sea has been made worse by the massive weight of the structures in New York.
Adding to the sinking phenomenon is the rising sea level as more glaciers melt away due to global warming, the study noted.
US Geological Survey geologist Tom Parsons, who led the research, said the sinking made New York more vulnerable to natural disasters.
“New York faces significant challenges from flood hazards. The threat of sea level rise is three to four times higher than the global average along the Atlantic coast of North America,” he and his team were quoted by international media as saying in the report.
“A deeply concentrated population of 8.4 million people are facing varying degrees of hazard from inundation.”
References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/
https://www.theguardian.com/
https://nypost.com/2023/05/17/
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