QUECHULA , Mexico, Oct. 19 (UPI) — Falling water levels in a Mexican reservoir resulting from low precipitation revealed the ruins of a 16th century church submerged for decades.
The Temple of Santiago, or Temple of Quechula, in the southern state of Chiapas, was built around the same time as the nearby monastery of Tecpatan, founded in 1564, and ended up underwater in the Nezahualcoyotl reservoir on the Grijalva River when a dam was constructed in the 1960s.
The structure is now visible above the water after a lack of rain caused the water level to drop about 75 feet.
The church, built by Dominican friars led by Bartolome de las Casas and abandoned when a plague affected the region between 1773 and 1776, previously made an above-water appearance in 2002, when water levels dropped far enough for people to walk inside the building.
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