People still believe in the adage, “I won’t believe it, till I see it”. There are already a lot of data collected to prove that the Millennium Tower in the Financial District at San Francisco is sinking. It is mostly the residents and the people working on the now dubbed Leaning Tower of San Francisco who have first-hand experience of the tower sinking. Now, there are images that clearly show how far the Leaning Tower of San Francisco is sinking.
Images taken by the European Space Agency’s group of satellites called Sentinel-1 shows how far the Millennium Tower is sinking. Scientists in the ESA have said the Leaning Tower of San Francisco is sinking at a rate of 40mm each year and 50mm each year if there’s no tilting. But just like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Millennium Tower is not sinking evenly. The Leaning Tower of San Francisco is leaning six inches from the top and tilting two inches on its base.
The Millennium Tower is a 645-feet tall luxury high rise with fifty-eight floors. Units of the Leaning Tower of San Francisco go for around two million dollars to as much as ten million dollars for the penthouse suites. Now residents of the Millennium Tower are not only concerned about their safety but also the future of their investment.
The sinking of the tower was first reported back in 2009 but engineers and the developers of Millennium Tower deemed it structurally safe. The Millennium Tower’s developer, its residents, and the government of San Francisco have been embroiled in lawsuits ever since the sinking of the tower became public knowledge.
Residents of the Millennium Tower are blaming the developers for building the tower on top of support piles instead of anchoring it on bedrock. The developers say they did build the tower on support piles just like the rest of the other building in the Financial District of San Francisco. The developers are blaming a construction near the tower for the cause of the sinking.
Using ESA’ Sentinel-1 and doing multiple radar scans on San Francisco, it is found out that it is not only Millennium Tower that is sinking, other places in San Francisco is too. Scientists have pinpointed out that the buildings along the Hayward Fault are also sinking. The structures in the newly-reclaimed land of San Rafael Bay are also sinking.
