Beer Sheva and Quakes

Not far from Beer Sheva, the Syria - East African rift valley slices across the Earth. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on the surface of the Earth at xxxx meters below Sea level. This rift is the result of tectonic plate activities.

The intersection of moving plates of the Earth's continents causes enormous strains in the rock structures that compose the crust of the planet. Occasionally the rocks break under the vast forces and when a break occurs, and Earth Quake may be the result. In Beer Sheva, I was able to feel this phenomena.

The following map images are inlined from: the Xerox PARC Map Viewer.

This next map is marked with a red box at 28:54N x 34:75E. This is where Usgs locates the epicenter of the quake.

(since the parc viewer was deactivated this link is broken)
On Nov. 22, 1995, at about 6:15am I was working at my laptop in the living room of our Beer Sheva apt. The room started to shake. This shaking reminded me of riding in the back of pickup down a Canadian logging road. It was frightening to look around at the masonry building and consider how fragile this place is when it must contend with shaking, rocking and rolling. I went into the bedroom where Lucia had been wakened. I asked her to get up and move away from the window beneath which she'd been asleep. Then, while the place still shook, she grabbed clothes and slipped them on. I guess it must've lasted nearly a minute. As it stopped, I decided we ought to take the opportunity to go outside.

The neighbors were gathered out in the street. There was no readily aparent damage to the building. Later in the day, I noticed that a hot water tank on the roof of next apartment block had fallen over, off of its stand. A few days later, I discovered that a TV antenna on our rooftop had taken a nose dive and lay crumpled over on a hot water tank.

Meanwhile, We got cold standing outside. Like the neighbors, we decided to go back in. We dint feel anything further that day.

In the hours following the quake, it was difficult to get information in English about the quake. We got some info by listening to Hebrew on the radio and but mostly our source was an IRC channel on the internet.

According to Israeli news sources, the epicenter was way down south from us. It was about 100 Km south of Eilat. That means it was almost 300 km from us. Initial reports said it was 6.2 on the Richter scale and damaged buildings as far away as Cairo. This location can be described at being at the estuary of The Gulf of Eilat in the Red Sea.

This is different from later information I obtained from quake experts on the net.

1.first quake 2. 3. (links broke when the parc viewer was deactivated)

There were 3 main shocks on Nov. 22nd, 1995:

The quake information server at Nsgs locates the quake at 28.5N 34.75E at a depth of 10km and a Mag of 7.2 at 04:15.11 Zulu. This was followed by 2 more events on the 22nd. The next was at 07:55 zulu and was located at 29.06N 34.80E, again at 10 km deep but only 4.6 on the Richter scale. We didn't notice it.

The final one of the day large enough to be reported on usgs was a 4.8 event at 12:47 zulu at 28:41N 34.80E at a depth of 10 km.

1.first quake 2.first quake

(links broke when the parc viewer was deactivated)

Additional shocks:

Each day since the quake (Today is Nov. 25) there has been a tremor that we could feel, though each has been less than the previous. Usgs reports a Nov. 23 rd 5.2 event at 18:07 zulu at 10 km centered at 29.19N 34.53E. On Nov. 25th, a 4.8 is reported by Usgs. The 10km deep quake was at 28:78N 34.53E and occured at 16:43 UCT.

1992:1992 quake (links broke when the parc viewer was deactivated)

In 1992, there was a 4.5 shock at 29.51N 31.47E that came at 17:38 on Oct. 22nd. It Killed 4 in Cairo and injured 50. For more info in quakes try: http://wwwneic.cr.usgs.gov/ is National Earthquake Information Center
You can go directly to the page: which is http://wwwneic.cr.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/eqlists.html a collection of information about quakes.
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