Israel has rare earthquake

[senorpepr]

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An earth tremor shook the Holy Land Wednesday, scattering Israelis and Palestinians in panic and sending a reminder of the potential for a destructive quake foreseen by seismologists and biblical prophets.

Israel said the epicenter of the quake was at the north of the Dead Sea and that it measured about five on the Richter Scale -- often felt but rarely strong enough to cause damage.

"We have not seen such a strong tremor here in recent years," said Infrastructure Minister Yossi Paritsky.
Cracks were spotted in Israel's Knesset parliament building after a session was suspended because of the tremor. Damage was reported to several buildings in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Emergency services Magen David Adom said they had treated several people for shock after the tremor, which was felt in the capitals of neighboring Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.

Fearing further shocks after the first few seconds of shaking, people ran from offices, homes and schools across Israel and the West Bank.

"I said, oh God, stop, stop it, and I am still trembling," said one woman in Jerusalem. "I felt death and I said in a few more seconds the building will crash. I live on the third floor. I felt the building shaking."

The Dead Sea is about 13 miles from Jerusalem.
Some schools in Israel and the West Bank remained closed after the tremor. "We are afraid that it will strike again," said Mahmoud Al-Aloun, the Palestinian governor of Nablus.

Israeli media said the quake was a magnitude 5, enough to cause serious damage in a populated area.
At the Knesset, Israel's parliament, investigators found cracks in the ceilings near Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office and in the main auditorium.

Lawmakers sitting in committee meetings feared a large bomb had gone off, Israel Army radio reported, and a parliamentary debate was canceled.

High-rise buildings in Tel Aviv, shopping malls and schools throughout the country were evacuated. Israel's Channel Ten TV reported minor damage to four apartments in Jerusalem.

In the West Bank, the quake caused items to fall off shelves in stores in Jericho. Schoolchildren in Ramallah and Bethlehem were sent home early.

The quake was felt for about 20 seconds in the Jordanian capital of Amman, sending frightened residents out of their homes.

"It felt like doomsday was there," said Samia Bakhit, walking barefoot and in her night gown as she dragged her 5-year old son Yousef out of their home in an Amman suburb.

A source at the Syrian meteorology agency in Damascus reported several smaller aftershocks but no damage. On Sunday, several small quakes of magnitude were felt in northeast Syria.

The region is located along the Great Rift Valley, which runs for 3,000 miles between Syria and Mozambique and passes through the Dead Sea, below Jerusalem's eastern hills.

The fault line was caused by the separation of African and Eurasian tectonic plates 35 million years ago, a split that weakened the Earth's crust.

About 35 miles to the north, another fault line cuts the land east to west from the Mediterranean port of Haifa with the West Bank towns of Jenin and Nablus before reaching the Jordan River.

On Dec. 31, a small earthquake of magnitude 3.7 was measured in the Dead Sea region, but no damage was recorded.
The region has a long record of destructive quakes.
In 1927, a quake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale killed more than 300 people and damaged more than 1,000 buildings in Jericho, Nablus, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Tiberias, Lod and Ramla.

The biggest quake measured in Israel, also with a magnitude of 6.2, was in 1995. It was in the Red Sea some 60 miles south of the resort of Eilat and caused no serious damage.

But seismologists have long warned that the region could be due for a more serious quake.
"A big earthquake may occur at any moment," said the Web Site of the Israeli Army's Home Front Command.
"Statistical estimates point to a high probability of an earthquake occurring in the next 50 years along the African Fault which runs the length of Israel's eastern border," it said.

Biblical prophets also foresaw destructive earthquakes, which they believed would herald a return of the Messiah.
The Hebrew prophet Zecharia predicted that Jerusalem's Mount of Olives would be cleft in two by a quake. The New Testament Book of Revelation predicts "a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth."

The Koran, the Muslim holy book, also predicts destructive earthquakes in the region.