Fears and
concerns about an imminent major earthquake have taken over the headlines in
Israel in recent times. The 3.2
earthquake that hit northern Israel in the evening of Monday July 9, 2018, was
the fifth
earthquake
in two days,
bringing the number of tremors in the area over two weeks to more than 40!
Each
tremor was a gentle but firm reminder of what experts predict is inevitable: a
major, potentially devastating earthquake.
The frustration of the experts is that government has been rather slow
to act on the recommendations that could minimize casualties from the expected
big quake.
“Apparently
it will unfortunately take a mid-sized quake with 100-200 casualties to make
this country wake up and seriously prepare,” Col. Itzik Bar from the IDF’s Home
Front Command lamented to the press. He put expected casualties from
a major quake at 7,000 dead and 200,000 homeless.
Scientists say thousands could die because Israel, which sits on a major
fault line, has ignored warnings to strengthen homes and schools. According to
geologist Ariel Heimann, “The threat of an earthquake, is in my eyes, the
greatest threat facing the state of Israel. It is definitely a greater threat
than the Qassam [rockets] fired from Gaza, and it is a far greater danger than
the Iranian threat.”
Ephraim Leor, an
expert on mass casualty disasters, was concerned about children being
particularly vulnerable in major earthquakes.
“In Haiti 38,000 children died, in China more than 10,000 children were
among the 120,000 killed, in Pakistan it was 17,000 among 83,000 dead — do people
understand this?” he moaned. “We could lose an entire generation between the
ages of 6 and 18.”
Defense
Minister Avigdor Liberman responded to the concerns with the announcement of a new multi-year plan to protect Israel
from earthquakes that he says will offer more protection to people in
the event of a major earthquake.
According to the World Health Organization, Northern
Israel and areas around Jerusalem and the Dead Sea are at high risk of a quake measuring five to 5.9 on the Richter
scale. The Syrian-African rift on which Israel sits, is a
tear in the earth’s crust running the length of the border separating Israel
and Jordan, and is part of the Great Rift Valley, which extends from northern
Syria to Mozambique. The last major earthquake to hit the region, a 6.2-magnitude
tremor in 1927 killed 500 people and injured another 700. All the experts are
warning that another major quake is due!
According
to the Bible, a devastating earthquake will accompany the landing of the Lord’s
feet on the Mount of Olives, at His second return!
“Then
shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in
the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of
Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the
east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east
and toward the west, and there shall be
a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north,
and half of it toward the south.” (Zec 14:3-4).
Might
all these tremors be the earth’s trembling at the discerned approaching
presence of the King of Kings? See Psalm 114:7!
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