'Like being built on jelly'Mexico City is built on deep, soft soil that was once the bottom of a lake. Search and rescue efforts continue at the Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017. The soft sediments were the major cause of damage in Mexico City's 1985 earthquake, according to Cornell University geophysicist Geoffrey Abers. World's other soft spotsThe same deep soft soil effect worsened the deadly 2015 Nepal earthquake because Kathmandu is also built on a dry lake bed, Jackson said. Earthquake scienceCBC's senior meteorologist Johanna Wagstaffe, who has a background in seismology, explains the tectonic shifts and other science of the Mexico earthquake, and answers viewers' questions, in this Facebook Live video, recorded Wednesday afternoon.

Source: CBC News September 20, 2017 23:57 UTC