The Syrian-African rift that crosses the State of Israel along its length is a series of connections of two huge continental plates in the Earth’s crust, on which the continents of Africa and Asia lie. Tectonic plates, the constant friction between them, created by the slow drifting of the two continents away from each other, creates a constant danger to the State of Israel from the force of great destruction of buildings which, God forbid, will occur due to friction of great strength. Such a noise occurs about once every hundred years, even though every year the Israel Geological Institute registers almost a hundred small tremors in the territory of Israel that are not felt.
What do you do during an earthquake in Israel? The complete guide
As mentioned, during the last two hundred years there have been several strong earthquakes in Israel, which would have occurred nowadays when Israel is one of the most densely built countries in the world, and hundreds of thousands of buildings there are not resistant to such noises, we would have suffered at least hundreds of deaths, which would not have been enough to escape from the buildings, thousands of injured and hundreds of thousands homeless.
In 1834, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the Judean Desert shook as far as the Dead Sea, and three years later a more destructive earthquake was recorded. In 1837 an earthquake destroyed Safed completely and great destruction was recorded in Tiberias. The intensity was probably 6.5 degrees, but it caused about 7,000 deaths and huge waves in the Sea of Galilee. The last severe earthquake recorded was in 1927, when Safed, Ramla, Lod and Nablus were severely damaged. Its intensity was 6.3, and it claimed the lives of nearly 300 people, and caused about a thousand injuries in all of Western Israel and Transjordan, the present-day Kingdom of Jordan. In addition, enormous property damage was recorded, as a result of the collapse of about ten thousand buildings on their occupants, and even the flow of the Jordan was stopped as a result of landslides.
Meanwhile, the strongest earthquake felt since the establishment of the State of Israel was recorded in the Gulf of Eilat in 1995, when the epicenter was in the Red Sea, about 150 km south of Eilat. It caused significant damage to roads and buildings. There were no casualties in Israel in that noise.
This is how you will defend yourself:
The iron rule in earthquake defense is to leave the house quickly to the street – without delay – and to stay away from buildings, or alternatively to enter internal concrete stairwells, or to the stairs if it is not possible to leave the house, or at the very least to stay away from external walls and take shelter next to the innermost wall of the building below for heavy furniture.
If the vibration occurs when you are inside a vehicle – stop and stay away from bridges and interchanges. If you are near the sea, you must stay at least a kilometer away from it. The only danger in an earthquake is the collapse of man-made buildings and infrastructure, or tsunami waves in the sea.
The earth, contrary to legends, does not open its mouth. Cracks or lifting of roads or bridges, this is another damage that an earthquake may cause. For this reason, being in an open area is the safest in earthquakes.