Lachlan Summers, an anthropology PhD candidate at the University of California Santa Cruz, delves into the enduring temporal impact of earthquakes on Mexico City and its inhabitants.
In mid-2018, roughly nine months after Mexico City’s last significant earthquake, Elena* found herself sleepless in her apartment for the fourth consecutive night. “It was like I could hear the walls,” she later recounted, explaining that these nights of insomnia had become commonplace since the seismic event. This magnitude 7.1 earthquake, while considered moderate for Mexico, proved particularly devastating due to its epicenter being in the densely populated capital. Elena, along with her family and friends, emerged physically unscathed, and her building appeared initially undamaged.
However, as time wore on in Mexico City, unsettling cracks began to spiderweb across her apartment walls – deep, alarming fissures that silently encircled each room. Worryingly, these fractures weren’t isolated incidents; they extended to apartments both above and below, signaling a hidden, systemic issue within the building’s structure. Overwhelmed by this silent disintegration, Elena started fleeing her apartment in the dead of night, seeking refuge in her office where she would sleep at her desk until her colleagues arrived.
Elena describes herself as “tocada,” a term translating to “touched” but often used in Mexico to mean “crazy,” akin to “touched in the head.” A lifelong resident of Mexico City in her 50s, Elena had weathered numerous tremors and earthquakes. Yet, the approximately 40 seconds she spent huddled on the floor on September 19th, shielding her head, profoundly altered her. Since then, she has grappled with a perplexing array of health problems: a significant weight loss exceeding 30 pounds, frequent dizzy spells, and persistent insomnia. Years have passed, but for Elena, the earthquake, in a sense, never truly ended, its time still echoing in her daily life in Mexico City.
For the past four years, ethnographic research into the aftermath of that earthquake in Mexico City has revealed countless stories mirroring Elena’s experience. Individuals report a spectrum of symptoms: insomnia, panic attacks, lethargy, wasting, appetite loss, dizziness, diarrhea, and altered behaviors like being unable to sleep alone or sleeping with shoes on, alongside bouts of vertigo. A common thread unites these “tocado” individuals: the earthquake made them sick, their bodies and minds seemingly caught in a different time frame within Mexico City.
In Mexico City, the common post-earthquake refrain is “Un bolillo pal susto” – “a bread roll for the fright.” This piece of folk wisdom suggests carbohydrates can reset the body after a scare, a remedy for “susto” – “fright sickness,” prevalent across Mexico and the Americas. Sudden shocks, like being in a shaking building, can trigger chronic health issues. Fear, in this cultural understanding, can indeed make you ill, extending the psychological time of the event in Mexico City.
“As time passed, cracks began appearing in the walls of her apartment, deep, alarming fissures that wrapped silently around the room.”
“Susto” is recognized as a “cultural concept of distress” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, yet its diverse symptoms complicate diagnosis within Western biomedicine’s mind-body dualism. Medical anthropology views “susto” as a “culture-bound syndrome,” unique to specific cultures. Interpretations range from it being a social distress expression to a folk label for a universal illness or a culturally shaped psychological response. “Tocado” bears resemblance, possibly earthquake-induced post-traumatic stress, but deeply interwoven with the specific context of Mexico City and its unique sense of time.
Moving beyond biomedicine’s constraints allows exploring “local biologies,” how bodies develop biological differences through unique environments. This perspective extends to local geologies and the Earth’s impact on a city, its structures, and its inhabitants. Elena’s explanation of her affliction gains traction: she feels sick because she is trapped in geological time, a time scale deeply embedded within Mexico City.
“Geological time,” or “deep time,” as Robert MacFarlane describes it in “Underland,” represents the immense expanse of planetary history stretching far beyond the present. While James Hutton conceived it in 1788, John McPhee popularized “deep time,” illustrating its scale: “Consider the Earth’s history as the old measure of the English yard, the distance from the king’s nose to the tip of his outstretched hand. One stroke of a nail file on his middle finger erases human history.” This vastness of time is a crucial element in understanding the ongoing impact of geological events on Mexico City.
Despite geological time dwarfing human existence, climate change has brought it into political discourse. Deep time serves as a contested analytic framework. Some advocate its adoption to overcome short-term thinking, while others caution against flattening history or inflating the present, or even question its ontological limitations. In Mexico City, the concept of time is particularly poignant given its geological vulnerability.
In “Annals of the Former World,” McPhee depicts geologists fascinated by the ancient intruding upon the present. “Geologists on the whole are inconsistent drivers,” he wrote. “When a roadcut presents itself, they tend to lurch and weave. To them, the roadcut is a portal.” These “portals” or “encounters” with deep time become tangible in places like Mexico City, where the geological past is constantly revealed. The question arises: Can deep time truly happen in our daily experience, especially in a city shaped by geological forces over vast stretches of time?
A cracked building in Mexico City‘s Cuauhtémoc borough exemplifies the city’s ongoing geological narrative, a story written in stone over vast stretches of time. (Lachlan Summers)
While Mexico City sits at 7,349 feet above sea level, its history is largely aquatic. Submerged until the Tertiary Period, the region began rising around 30 million years ago due to the Cocos plate subducting under the North American plate, causing fractures in Mexico’s continental crust. Magma surged through these breaks, forming the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, a 620-mile arc across Mexico. This geological time scale is fundamental to understanding the city’s present condition.
The Valley of Mexico, then a valley, not a basin, was bordered by mountains. The Rio Balsas flowed south. Around 2 million years ago, in the Late Pliocene, volcanic eruptions sealed the valley’s south, creating a 3,700 square mile basin. Melting snow and rain filled it, forming five interconnected lakes: saltwater in the north, freshwater in the south. The Mexica, arriving in the 14th century, built dikes and dams to manage these waters, developed “chinampas” (floating agriculture), and founded Tenochtitlan, shaping the landscape and the course of time in the Valley of Mexico.
Two centuries later, Hernán Cortés marveled at Tenochtitlan, “built on a salt lake” that “rises and falls with its tides as does the sea,” before destroying it. Colonists, unsettled by the environment, demolished the water management systems, draining the valley to establish what became one of the world’s largest cities on a former lakebed. This historical decision, impacting the city’s geological relationship, continues to resonate through time in Mexico City.
“Though the lakes are gone, the city still floats. Sort of.”
Carmen Gutiérrez-Castorena’s 2005 study highlights Mexico City‘s improbable nature. Imagine a 70-meter deep soil prism, one meter square. After drying, less than seven cubic meters of soil remain. After air pocket collapse, just over half a cubic meter of solid material is left. This thought experiment underscores the unstable foundation upon which Mexico City is built, a foundation shaped by geological time and human intervention.
Though the lakes are gone, Mexico City still “floats.” Rainwater is diverted, so the city heavily relies on the aquifer, causing subsidence. The Angel of Independence, erected in 1910 with nine stairs, now has 23 as the ground sank. This sinking, a slow march of geological time, is a visible reality in Mexico City.
Mexico City‘s soil, a mix of clay, debris, ruins, and volcanic rock, subsides unevenly. Eastern areas like Tláhuac and Iztapalapa sink almost a foot yearly. Differential subsidence creates “grietas,” fissures that fracture roads and building foundations, particularly in central and eastern areas. During earthquakes, these grietas violently rupture, while loose soils liquefy, amplifying seismic waves along ancient waterways. These geological processes, unfolding over time, profoundly influence earthquake impact in Mexico City.
The 1985 and 2017 earthquakes, both on Sept. 19, devastated Mexico City due to soft soils, lax building codes, unstable structures, and colonial legacies. Earthquakes stem from tectonic plate movement, but draining the lakes intensified the geological intrusion, making time a critical factor in the city’s vulnerability.
“Footpaths undulate. Potholes suddenly appear in the street and begin consuming the road. A fissure slyly burrows under a building to do unseen work to its foundations.”
Manuel DeLanda, born in Mexico City, termed cities “the mineralization of humanity,” a “geosocial formation” inseparable from the earth. Mexico City‘s urban structure reflects its geological base. Undulating footpaths, sudden potholes, and fissures undermining buildings are common. New concrete at building entrances compensates for ground subsidence. These are everyday manifestations of geological time impacting Mexico City.
“Concrete,” Cristián Simonetti notes, derives from Latin “concrescence,” “an unfinished gathering.” It’s a fitting etymological root for the material reconnecting Mexico City to its unstable foundation. Viewing Mexico City as a geophysical entity reveals a continuity between tectonic plate movement and the gradual deterioration of buildings and lives, blurring the lines of human and geological time.
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A Google Earth view of damaged buildings from the 2017 earthquake in Mexico City, overlaid with the former lake extent, visually representing the city’s vulnerability rooted in its geological history and time. (Jascha Polet)
Mexico City bears visible marks of its seismic history: abandoned buildings, lifeless potted plants. But ongoing seismic activity also leaves signs, a geological time continuing beyond single events. “Tocado” individuals are attuned to these evolving indicators: wall cracks, ground shifts, building angles – geological sensors highlighting the city’s continuous, slow collapse, a process unfolding over extended time.
This heightened awareness is disorienting. Alongside physical symptoms, “tocado” individuals experience dizziness or vertigo even at ground level – an earthly seasickness from geophysical motion. The unstable Mexico City environment induces illness, a constant reminder of geological time.
While cracks spread through Elena’s building, Ana in Tlalpan described vertigo near a specific building. “Ay it gives me vertigo, even from here,” she exclaimed. Ana experiences two vertigo types since the 2017 earthquake: height-induced dizziness and pressure-induced vertigo near certain buildings. Both are linked to her perception of altered time and space in Mexico City.
“It makes me dizzy when I’m underneath it,” she explained, feeling a pressing sensation.
Leaning buildings in Mexico City, a daily encounter for Ana, visually embody the city’s instability and the ongoing effects of geological time. (Lachlan Summers)
Approaching the building, the feeling became palpable – a sense of the upper stories leaning inward. The gap between buildings widened significantly higher up. Though seemingly occupied, they appeared propped up by adjacent structures.
“Every day I pass it and it looks bigger,” Ana noted. “Something underneath must have given way. How long until they come down?” This question of time – how long until collapse? – is a constant concern in Mexico City.
Mexico City‘s building code allows only 0.43% lean. These buildings, estimated at 60 feet, should lean only three inches. But how perceptible is a three-inch lean from below? And is it truly safe? Regulations offer little reassurance in a city with a history of corruption. Post-1985 earthquake codes, while stricter, still faced issues of graft and collusion. Stories circulate of architects with reputations for unsound construction gaining influential roles in building safety verification. The slow creep of geological time interacts with the human time of regulation and enforcement in Mexico City.
Developers often dismiss architects demanding costly, durable materials. A market for “firmones” – architects paid to rubber-stamp blueprints – thrives. A school collapse in the 2017 earthquake, due to a secret fourth story, killed 19 children and seven staff. The approving architect received a 208-year jail sentence, a near-geological time span in human terms. This tragedy underscores the deadly intersection of human negligence and geological vulnerability in Mexico City.
Buildings across Mexico City collapse years after earthquakes. Gloria, a retired teacher, reinforced her building post-1985 earthquake, yet cracks persisted. After the 2017 earthquake, the building was condemned. Reinforcements had weakened it, damage compounded. The building was always in deep time, its collapse a slow process aggravated by seismic events. As Gloria said, “It was falling the whole time and we had no idea. The earthquake just aggravated what was always happening there. It was happening all the time, all the time, all the time.” This ongoing time of decay is a feature of Mexico City.
“Like an earthly seasickness induced by geophysical motion, the kinesthetics of this unstable city can make residents ill.”
In Mexico City, destruction is rarely absolute. “Tocado” residents are attuned to collapse cues: cracks, gaps, fissures – a gray zone between destruction and disintegration. This geophysical sense prompts temporal questions: “Is this new?” “How long?” “How long left?” “When is certainty possible?” These are questions of living in earthquake time in Mexico City.
Fernanda, another “tocada,” contemplating an adjacent abandoned building, said, “Se acerca el dia en el que se cae encima de mi,” – “The day is coming in which it falls on top of me.” Her phrasing, “the day approaches,” is significant. Time wasn’t centered on her experience; time was happening to her, embodied by the building’s slow collapse. Both building and Fernanda were trapped in earthquake time, a different sense of time within Mexico City.
This time keeps Elena awake. Post-earthquake, she tracked crack expansion in her apartment, marking dates as if charting a child’s growth. Neighbors corroborated the building’s movement. Elena’s fear stemmed not just from the cracks, but their temporality, the ongoing process within the building itself, a building existing in a different time scale than human perception in Mexico City.
Cracks in Elena’s apartment, dated and monitored, visually represent the ongoing geological time impacting daily life in Mexico City. (Lachlan Summers)
Deep time is often seen as separate from everyday experience, even history. But we live in an era where experiential, historical, and deep time collide. Which of these times are inscribed on Mexico City apartment walls?
The Anthropocene, coined in Mexico City in 2000, describes an epoch where human actions have geological-scale effects. Capitalism and colonialism become forces akin to tectonic plates. Human history makes the geological present. In Mexico City, history allows the geological to inhabit people’s homes, blurring the lines of different time scales.
Viewing Mexico City geophysically, “tocado” becomes a historical way of relating to Earth. Elena’s affliction isn’t just trauma or earthquake fear, but fear of ongoing processes initiated by earthquakes: fissures, slumps, leans, collapses – a prolonged earthquake time.
Hugh Raffles describes earthquake time as ruptured time: “Time breaks, it suspends… slowing to almost zero and leaving you actually hanging.” “Tocado” individuals in Mexico City live in this suspension, human time yielding to something larger. Like Bolaño’s description of time as a series of nearby explosions, seismic time in Mexico City is not linear, but a constant state of flux.
This seismic time extends beyond single events, initiated by earthquakes but sustained by geophysical and political processes. “Tocado” is not just individual pathology or cultural expression, but an emergent condition linking bodies, histories, laws, and earth, all within the unique temporal context of Mexico City. Deep time in Mexico City is palpable, undeniable, if one is compelled to see.
Deep time offers a useful contemporary framework, a temporal literacy placing present events in deeper history. However, it risks subsuming deep time into the present. Mexico City reveals something more physical – a time neither merging human and geological nor separating them. “Tocado” individuals, through embodied awareness of earthly processes, show deep time is not just scale, but a different temporal geometry. Homes become both safe havens and indifferent geological entities. Deep time portals open in Mexico City‘s cracks, slumps, and fissures, revealing an immense, ever-approaching horizon, a constant reminder of the city’s geological time.
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