This time, just a natural Earthquakes in Palestine
Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb
Dr. Nuha Khoury
Two earthquakes hit Palestine and its neighboring
countries at 10:20 this morning, the epicenter of which was the northern
part of the Dead Sea. The earthquakes, which registered 5 on the Richter
scale, shook the International Center twice for almost 10 seconds. The staff
started running out of the building checking to see if everyone was safe.
While trying to understand what was happening, a neighbor came to us running
saying that the steeple of the Christmas Lutheran Church was collapsing. At
first no one believed him and we thought that he was joking. Yet, upon
rushing to the street to see for ourselves, we saw that the massive stone
surrounding the cross on top of the church’s steeple has tumbled down on the
street below. The 112 years old steeple withstood the 1927 earthquake, which
left over 1000 building in Palestine destroyed. This time the steeple lost
its top cornerstone. Miraculously, the fallen 80-pound lime stones did not
harm anyone, except for the dent that it left in the street.
Soon, news spread that the Christmas Lutheran Church has had a stone falling. People started gathering around the church to see what went wrong. Among the visitors were local and international journalists as well as the Governor of the Bethlehem District. The civil defense authorities inspected the steeple from inside, detecting four cracks in the upper part; each being nine to twelve feet long. Immediately, the civil defense authorities evacuated the neighboring medical laboratory and shops, closed part of the street and warned that other large stones, as well as the iron cross on top might fall any moment. Although the damage itself is not too big, the real challenge is how to reach the tip of the steeple to fix the damage and to prevent a real tragedy from happening. Special and costly scaffolding and cranes are needed for such a job, which are not available in Palestine. Our challenge now is to try and locate the right equipment and the experienced companies that can fix the damage.
