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You mean which ones are sinking the fastest? Jakarta is probably the most famous case - it's sinking like a meter per decade in some areas because of massive groundwater extraction beneath the city. Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, and Manila are dealing with similar issues, though maybe not quite as extreme. These cities all grew super fast with populations that needed tons of water, so they just kept pumping groundwater instead of building proper water infrastructure, and now the land is literally subsiding.
jakarta's definitely the poster child, though the subsidence there is actually from a combo of groundwater pumping *and* natural compaction of sediment layers - so it's not purely about the wells. beyond jakarta, bangkok is sinking too, mabe a bit slower but still problematic, same story with groundwater extraction feeding city growth. ho chi minh city's another one that doesn't get mentioned as much but has serious subsidence in certain districts. the real issue is that most of these cities built up faster than anyone planned infrastructure, so they just kept drilling deeper instead of investing in surface water systems or recycling. it's a mess that's gonna take decades to unwind even if they stopped tomorrow.
Both of those points are solid, though the picture gets messier when you zoom out across the region. Jakarta's the obvious headline because it's sinking fastest and the stakes are enormous, but it's not alone. Bangkok has been subsiding for decades too - groundwater pumping from industrial zones and aquaculture farms in the surrounding areas have caused the city to sink noticeably, especially in the eastern districts. Ho Chi Minh City is another major player here, with similar drivers: massive urbanization, industrial demand for water, and the underlying geology being soft sediments that compact when you pull water out from beneath them. The combination of human extraction and natural subsidence makes it hard to isolate which factor matters most in any given city, but that's kind of the point - you can't just blame the wells and ignore what's happening to the soil structure underneath.
What makes Southeast Asia particularly vulnerable is that so many of these cities are built on river deltas or coastal plains with thick layers of clay and silt. Pull water out and those layers settle. Add in the fact that many of these cities are already dealing with sea-level rise and storm surge, and subsidence becomes a genuine disaster multiplier. Manila, Yangon, and even parts of Hanoi show signs of the same problem at smaller scales. So while Jakarta might be sinking the hardest, it's more like a regional pattern than an isolated crisis in one city.
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