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October 6, 2021 4:21 pm
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‘Only a Question of When’: Israel Must Do More to Prepare for Major Earthquake Threat, Say Experts

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avatar by Sharon Wrobel

In July 2015, a 4.3-magnitude earthquake struck around the Dead Sea (pictured) in Israel. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Though talk of the most pressing risks facing Israel often focuses on regional foes like Iran, one national security expert is sounding the alarm about the country’s readiness for a potentially catastrophic natural disaster.

“There is enough geological information to determine with certainty that a large-scale, destructive earthquake will occur in Israel,” Ariel Heimann, a geologist and visiting fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), told The Algemeiner in an interview. “It is not a question of if, it’s only a question of when, and everybody knows that.”

“Even though an earthquake is a likely and significant threat to Israel’s national security and resilience, the resources and attention dedicated to preparedness for it are significantly less than those allocated to preparedness and confrontation with other threats, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the threat from Iran,” he said.

According to Heimann, the risks of such a natural disaster have been underestimated in part because the timing of the next major earthquake is so difficult to predict.

“The earthquake threat doesn’t have the right or the best PR,” Heimann said. “It might take 10 or 20 years or less, meaning that it might not happen during the tenure of the current governing politicians, so they think it is not their business to deal with.”

Earthquakes occur mainly in the border regions between tectonic plates moving over the earth and the friction that results from the motion between them. Israel is affected by the collisions of the African plate with the European plate, and mainly by the friction stemming from the motion between the Arabian plate east of Israel and the African plate. Many earthquakes occur along this border between the plates, which stretches from the Red Sea and the Gulf of Eilat in the south, through the Jordan Valley, and up to Turkey in the north.

In December, Tel Aviv University researchers warned that an earthquake estimated to measure 6.5 on the Richter scale — potentially causing hundreds of deaths and destroying poorly-built buildings — is expected to hit Israel in the coming years. The projection was based on the results of a study after researchers drilled to a depth of hundreds of meters under the bed of the Dead Sea and were able to analyze the history of earthquakes in the region over the last 220,000 years, which they claim is the longest record of its kind in the world.

“The geological record does not lie and a major earthquake in Israel will come,” said Prof. Shmuel Marco, who heads Tel Aviv University’s Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences. “We live in an earthquake country much like California, although in California the earthquakes are much more frequent than in Israel.”

The last major earthquake with a magnitude of about 6.5 on the Richter scale struck the Dead Sea valley region in 1927, claiming the lives of 500 people. Over 130 people were killed in Jerusalem alone, while 450 were injured and 300 buildings collapsed or were seriously damaged.

According to a scenario presented to Israel’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in 2016, a major earthquake in Israel would cause about 7,000 fatalities with 8,600 people seriously injured, and would leave 170,000 people homeless.

“In such a scenario, Israel would have a high likelihood of entering a state of ongoing disaster,” cautioned Heimann, who is a former senior researcher at the Geological Survey of Israel. “Buildings would collapse in dozens of communities, and the various rescue units, even if many and well-trained, would not succeed in treating the majority of those injured.”

Heimann argued that the government and state authorities are not sufficiently investing in the preparations to mitigate damage, such as by strengthening buildings, or preparing the various bodies, institutions, and citizens themselves.

“Above all, in Israel there is no overarching body in charge of managing the state’s overall preparations for mass disasters, including earthquakes, with specific responsibility and enforcement powers over state institutions, the economy, and citizens,” he said.

One concern is that many old buildings in Israel built before the 1980s do not meet the earthquake construction standard.

“Some of these buildings are dilapidated, evidenced recently, for example, when a residential building in Holon collapsed even without the ground shaking,” said Heimann.

In the past, he noted, Israel had decided to allocate 5 billion shekels ($1.54 billion) to strengthen buildings for earthquakes, but a government ministry report last year showed that only 7 million shekels were transferred. Additionally, Israel’s budget proposal for 2021-2022 makes no special reference to earthquakes.

While Israelis can react within seconds when they hear a siren warning of an incoming rocket attack, they are not routinely drilled for the eventuality of an earthquake.

“We Israelis live with this feeling that no matter where we are, if it is in Antarctica, Israel will take risks to try and save us. This is our nature. We are sure that if my house will collapse due to an earthquake, the country will come and save me, and what we don’t understand that the country will not have the ability to do it and we will have to do it by ourselves,” Heimann argued.

An Algemeiner request for comment to Israel’s ministerial Earthquake Preparedness Steering Committee was not answered at publication.

Israel does already have a number of preparations in place, including regular drills by the Home Front Command’s search and rescue units, and national and local exercises. The country is also now running a public-private pilot for an earthquake early warning system, which can potentially send out alerts to population centers, companies and factories as the earthquake hits but before significant ground shaking.

“We spend a lot of money to insure our property, our health and our life not because we plan for anything to happen, but we want to be ready when and if it happens, and the same should be with earthquakes,” said Professor Marco. “We should be ready all the time, because nobody is going to tell us days or weeks or months before the earthquake.”

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