Millennium Tower is tilting, sinking
My house is on a steep hill, and Seattle has a reputation for hills sliding away under heavy rain. Before building it, I hired 3 separate geologists to evaluate the site.After digging holes, they said the site was sitting on "glacial till", which is clay that was compacted by about a mile of ice, and said there was nothing to worry about. Paying them was worth it for the peace of mind. (Turns out the till was so hard it could not be dug with hand tools.)I did have a scare because a spring appeared on the edge of the property, as underground water is indicative of slide risk. Fortunately, it turned out to be a leak in the water main!I still made sure the hard surfaces all drained into the storm drain, so that the hill wouldn't become saturated with water.I can't conceive of building a 58 story building on sand in an earthquake zone. Reminds me of that Monty Python quote:"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England."