Earthquakes struck Lebanon in the past and changed its geographical shape… Here are the most prominent ones

Although #Lebanon is considered one of the countries that know #seismic activity due to the presence of faults within its territory, most notably the East Fault or Yammouneh, it is not a meeting point of tectonic plates. But we cannot ignore the fact that many areas of present-day Lebanon lie alongside the Dead Sea rift, which forms part of the boundary between the Arab tectonic plate and the African tectonic plate, and its geographical location over the centuries has led to many landslides, earthquakes and “tsunamis”. Especially in the regions of Mount Lebanon, here are the most prominent ones:

Tsunami in 365:
In the year 365, the coasts of #Beirut reached high “tsunami” waves, after an earthquake occurred on the island of Crete in Greece, whose intensity was estimated at more than 8 degrees on the Richter scale, according to contemporary historians. The tsunami wave reached ten meters high, causing extensive damage in many areas of the capital.

The earthquake that destroyed the city of Beirut in 551:

During the fifth and sixth centuries, Beirut witnessed a period of natural disasters, from earthquakes to floods, and the most prominent disaster was the year 551 in the destruction of several Lebanese regions, during the reign of the Byzantine King Justinian I, when the city lived on the impact of the worst earthquake of 7.5 degrees. The waters of the Mediterranean had withdrawn hundreds of meters before the tsunami hit the Lebanese coast, claiming many victims, which affected a number of Byzantine cities. This earthquake caused widespread destruction and destroyed several cities between Tire and Tripoli, most notably the city of Beirut.
This incident was documented in the memoirs of a man known as Hajj Piacenza, who spoke of “the ruin of Beirut and its transformation into a large pile of rubble and stones, in addition to the killing of more than 30,000 people in this city alone.”

Fifty earthquakes in Lebanon within 60 days in 1202:
In the year 1202, a strong earthquake struck the Syrian lands, with a magnitude of 7.5 degrees, and its aftershocks were crushing in several Lebanese regions through the Yammouneh fault, and it resulted in a subsidence in the coasts and the sinking of many small islands that were extending along the Lebanese coast, and only the island of rabbits remained off the coast. Tripoli, the city of Tripoli and Baalbek were also destroyed, and more than 30 columns of the Baalbek Citadel fell, and more than a million victims fell in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Armenia, Turkey, and the island of Sicily in the Mediterranean, as was followed by a wave of famine and the spread of diseases in the affected areas.

Syria earthquake in 1759
In 1759, a series of devastating earthquakes shook a large part of the eastern Mediterranean region, where several areas were destroyed, including the city of Nablus, Acre, Tyre, Tripoli and Hama, and the village of Ras Baalbek and the city of Damascus were damaged. At least 2,000 people died. It is possible that the events of 1759, along with the earthquake in Syria in 1202, were among the strongest historical earthquakes in the region.

Chehim earthquake in 1956

(An-Nahar newspaper in 1956)

On the 16th of March 1956, Lebanon was subjected to three earthquakes centered on the lower reaches of the Bisri River, where the earthquake completely destroyed some villages, including: Roum, Azour, Chehim, Joun, Qaytouli and Kfarhi, which are located on a small circle surrounding Joubet Bisri, the focal point of the earthquakes. This tragedy had turned the lives of the citizens upside down, and Joseph Nasr had reported in the “An-Nahar” newspaper the suffering of the afflicted in Shehim, saying: “Health care must precede everything there because hunger has begun to do its work. People’s supplies remained in homes and homes.” There is nothing left of it.” And the writer continues: “The awnings are the most important thing that people demand, I still hear that mother who pushed her children forward and shouted at me: Where are the awnings?

Tectonic plates are distributed on the Earth’s surface
Here, it should be noted that Lebanon lies at the junction of three tectonic plates: the Arab plate, the Turkish plate, and the African plate.