PHOTOS: 400-Year-Old Church Emerges From Drying Mexico Reservoir

By Jillian MacMath, AccuWeather.com Staff Writer

October 19,2015; 10:19PM,EDT

 

 

Amid building drought conditions, plummeting water levels in Mexico's Nezahualcoyotl reservoir have revealed a 400-year-old church known as the Temple of Santiago.
The reservoir's water depth has dropped by 82 feet, according to the Associated Press, marking only the second time the church has been revealed since the dam was completed in 1966.
(AP Photo/David von Blohn)
Architect Carlos Navarete, who worked with Mexican authorities on a report about the church, told the Associated Press that the structure was built by a group of monks who arrived in the region inhabited by the Zoque people in the mid-16th century.
It was then abandoned due to the plagues of 1773-1776, he said.
(AP Photo/David von Blohn)
"El Niño is likely the cause of the drought in this area," according to AccuWeather Meteorologist Rob Miller.
El Niño causes strong wind shear in the atmosphere over Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, causing fewer tropical systems to develop.
(AP Photo/David von Blohn)
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"As we have seen this summer, very few tropical systems have reached southern Mexico, causing them to get less rain than they usually see," Miller said.
"They will likely need the El Niño to dissipate [to see relief from the drought], something not likely to happen until early 2016."
(AP Photo/David von Blohn)
This is not the first documented case of drought conditions unearthing historic artifacts.
Earlier this year, drought conditions in Poland uncovered a Soviet fighter plane and various other pieces of history buried in the terrain of the Vistula River near Warsaw.