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posted by martyb on Monday November 28 2016, @03:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-goes-up-must-come-down dept.

The ESA's web report discusses subsidence and (more rarely?) elevation of the earth's surface. It works especially well in cities, “down to millimetres. The technique works well with buildings because they better reflect the radar beam” They're studying the phenomenon worldwide.

The Sentinel-1 satellites have shown that the Millennium Tower skyscraper in the centre of San Francisco is sinking by a few centimetres a year. [...] Completed in 2009, the 58-storey Millennium Tower has recently been showing signs of sinking and tilting. Although the cause has not been pinpointed, it is believed that the movements are connected to the supporting piles not firmly resting on bedrock.

The Register succinctly summarizes the whole situation in this report:

It was expected to sink less than 10 inches during its lifetime. It's already slumped 16 inches, is listing a few inches to the northwest, and it could sink a further 31 inches. The European Space Agency today said its Sentinel-1 satellites, having scanned the city's surface, have found that the building is disappearing into the ground at a rate of a few centimetres a year.

The problem appears to be that it was not built all the way down to the bedrock, and instead is sitting on a concrete slab with piles that go down just 60 to 80-feet into an underlying layer of landfill. Lawsuits against the developers are, as expected, in flight.

It's alleged that the city's building inspectors knew back in 2009 that the tower was sinking but did nothing about it – not even alerting the public nor the apartments' owners. San Francisco magazine's Lauren Smiley and Joe Eskenazi have detailed this ongoing clusterfsck at length here; it's worth the read.

The Register article also provides a copy of the ESA's displacement map for San Francisco with the tower's location marked and provides a link to a higher-res map.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @05:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @05:39PM (#434114)

    Isn't this the water-front tower of condo? If so, fuck the rich bastards, all of them. :)

  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday November 28 2016, @07:55PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 28 2016, @07:55PM (#434180) Journal

    No, this is considerably in from the waterfront, and, if I've got the correct building, is build right beside the main freeway leading to the Bay Bridge. Whee! Whenever I've gone past it it has looked as if it were already falling. Guess that wasn't entirely a visual illusion.

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    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Whoever on Monday November 28 2016, @10:28PM

      by Whoever (4524) on Monday November 28 2016, @10:28PM (#434257) Journal

      No, this is considerably in from the waterfront,

      Today's waterfront, yes. This tower is built in a place that was under water before they started reclaiming land by filling in the Bay.

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday November 29 2016, @06:49PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 29 2016, @06:49PM (#434606) Journal

        The gp was talking about "waterfront property", so today's waterfront is what was important. (OTOH, the upper floors might well have a "waterfront view", but not a vary aesthetic one from *my* point of view.)

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:27AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:27AM (#434289)

    Everyone with a lot of money is evil!

    Everyone without any money is good!

    Hooray, where's my Certificate For Graduation In Idiotic Platitude School!!!?