Chiapas, Mexico – A 17th-century church in Chiapas, Mexico that has been covered by water for almost 60 years has once again shown its façade.
The church, known as the Temple of Santiago or the Temple of Quechula, was built by Dominican friars in the town of Quechula in the mid-1600s, and was completely submerged in 1966 as a result of the construction of the Nezahualcóyotl dam on the Grijalva River.
Over the past six months, drought in Chiapas has plunged water levels at the reservoir to extreme levels.
Now, for the fourth time since the area was flooded, the remains of the Temple of Quechula have emerged from the depths of the reservoir, and tourists are flocking to the site to catch a glimpse of the church before it disappears beneath the water once again.
The drought has fully revealed the Roman Catholic church’s remaining walls and the bell tower. The walls are about 30 feet tall while the bell tower has a height of 42 feet. The water is low enough for tourists to walk through the towering archway and into the church, but the low water levels are also impacting local fishermen.
Miguel Garcia Aguilera, the head of the local fishing association, told AFP in Spanish that the water levels of the dam began to drop five months ago.
“It went down, down, down, down until where we are now, Aguilera said. “And it continues to go down. The water levels of the dam continue to go down.”
The wet season, October through December of 2022, was extremely dry. In a time period when the area was supposed to receive 27.9 inches of rain, Aguilera estimated the area only received 11.61 inches – less than half of the normal amount of rainfall.
“When the rain was supposed to fill up the reservoir, it just never did,” Aguilera said. “January and February were okay for rainfall, then it went south.”
March is supposed to be the area’s driest month of the year with an average of 1.06 inches of rain, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tyler Roys. This year the area saw no recorded rainfall throughout the month.
As of June 18, the reservoir’s water levels had diminished to 29% of capacity, according to media reports. “With the drought that we have, the dam level is very low. The water is very hot, the temperature is very hot, so what it does is kill the fish,” Aguilera said. “So that’s why we’re having a lot of losses.”
The church has emerged at least three times before, once in 2002, once in 2015, and again in 2019. The last two times, water levels had also dropped low enough for tourists to walk through the church.