Public Disaster Looms in Form of Major Earthquake in Israel

Israel formally launched a national earthquake early warning system that could alert Israel’s Home Front Command within seconds once it detects earthquake signs.

By: Israel Kasnett

Screams pierce the air as the dust clears and survivors begin to emerge from the rubble. More than 10,000 people have been killed and 20,000 more are injured. Thousands of buildings across the country have collapsed. In some areas, there is deathly silence; in others, cries for help can be heard from beneath the debris. The streets are impassable; shattered glass, bricks and chunks of concrete are strewn everywhere. Trees, light poles and electrical wires lie across the ground and where there were once unbroken roads, deep cracks and chasms now threaten cars and pedestrians.

Dazed citizens sit on the curb as they nurse their wounds and mourn dead loved ones. Some able survivors begin to search for spouses, children, parents. In many cases, it’s too late. Water gushes everywhere from ruptured pipes, and the unmistakable smell of natural gas hangs in the air. One errant spark could cause an explosion and, with it, more death and injury. Emergency services are overwhelmed; many of the main roads are impassable, and they can’t reach the wounded, let alone transport them to a hospital. Those with life-threatening injuries will die as a result. And if the dead aren’t removed, identified and buried quickly, disease may spread, and the stench will become unbearable.

This terrifying scenario is not unlikely, nor is it war-related. Israel today faces a looming threat; it is due for a massive, imminent earthquake that could happen at any time.

Israel sits on the Syrian-African rift fault line—a junction of the major African and Arabian tectonic plates, which run through the Red Sea, the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley up to northern Syria. A smaller rift also branches west through Israel’s Carmel region.

In 2012, Israel held its first national exercise to examine how prepared the country and its institutions are for a severe earthquake. The results were dismal. The question is: How much more prepared is Israel a decade later? Many experts seem to agree: not much. Most Israeli citizens today know what to do in the event of a rocket attack but have no idea what to do in the event of an earthquake. This ignorance is dangerous and could result in many preventable deaths.

Shmuel Marco, an expert on earthquakes at Tel Aviv University’s Department of Geophysics, told JNS that the government must make preparations based on existing knowledge from previous earthquakes “because this is the only source of information we have about what earthquakes might do in the future.”

Marco noted that the government is already in the process of creating an early warning system in case of such an event.

On Feb. 7, Israel formally launched a national earthquake early warning system (EEWS) named TRUAA that could alert Israel’s Home Front Command within seconds once it detects earthquake signs.

A pair of earthquakes that shook northern Israel on Feb. 15 and Feb. 16 prompted further calls from local council heads to improve municipal and national readiness before disaster strikes.

The Geological Survey of Israel (GSI) reported that a magnitude 3.1 tremor shook the north on Wednesday morning, about 12 hours after a magnitude 3.5 earthquake was felt in the same area on Tuesday evening. The epicenter of the quakes was some 15 kilometers (9 miles) northeast of Beit She’an, according to the GSI.

(JNS.org)