There's nothing new under the sun, the handwriting is on the wall, "trust me," national commissions of inquiry – they all have the same, hackneyed sound.
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The collapse of the bleachers at the Karlin-Stolin synagogue in Givat Ze'ev came as no surprise. The question is, who is to blame for the death of two and the injury of 184? Unsurprisingly, each authority is now assigning blame to the others, but what about personal responsibility? A notice at the entrance to the site reads clearly: "For safety reasons, entrance is prohibited"!!!
A document signed by the Head of the Fire Safety Division at the Israel Fire and Rescue Authority had warned of the dangers. The official position of the Judea and Samaria District at the Fire and Rescue Authority, known well before the disaster, is that a mass event cannot be held in a building that has not received the authorization of construction completion from the Authority.
Any planned event that requires a business license or a fire safety affidavit must go through the usual Fire and Safety Authority channels. On May 13, the Givat Ze'ev Council also warned of the hazard. The bleacher itself was reinforced using improvised means, resulting in the tragic outcome.
In 1911, the rooftop railing of the gravesite compound on Mount Meron collapsed and fell on the revelers below. A hundred people who were on the roof fell from a height of eight meters. Eleven died and 40 were injured. The celebration was attended by a crowd of 10,000 – a huge number relative to the number of Jews living in Palestine at the time. Just like today.
Sixteen years later, an earthquake shook the country for seven seconds. According to eyewitnesses, the Dead Sea "boiled and its waves were high"; others described tsunami-like waves and collapsing multi-story buildings. The death toll was 192, with 923 injured. In Nablus, about a third of the buildings collapsed; in Lod and Ramla, entire streets crumbled into ruins.
But who in Israel has the presence of mind to think of future hazards? The Meron failure is no different from our conduct regarding possible earthquakes. Israel is in danger of a major catastrophe in terms of dead and wounded, as well as extensive damage to property. So far, signs have been placed near beaches saying, "Beware of tsunami." Ass covered, so to speak.
Any expert would certainly have warned of the danger of a mass-casualty incident at Meron. Well, according to all the experts, Israel is expected to undergo a powerful earthquake in the Dead Sea area, which will expose large portions of the population to the danger of injury and death – mostly in the center of the country. Past earthquakes occurred before the country was densely populated, and even then, caused widespread destruction.
History shows that once in a century, an earthquake hits our region, occurring along the Syrian-African Rift. In the past, Tiberias, Safed, Beit Shean, and Lod were virtually erased. A tsunami in Caesarea probably drowned the ancient Herodian port. Many of the country's cities may be destroyed, from Beersheba and Eilat in the south, to Nesher and Haifa – including the refineries located there – to Kiryat Shmona, Safed, and Tiberias in the north.
The last exercise of the Home Front Command presented an entirely plausible scenario: an earthquake at a magnitude of 7.1 that kills thousands, with 150,000 uprooted from their homes, infrastructure damage on a national scale, and victims trapped under rubble throughout the country. 164 local councils took part in the exercise, as well as different government ministries and essential service providers.
"A powerful earthquake will occur in Israel, but we cannot foretell when and at what magnitude," wrote Amir Yahav, Director of the Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee for Earthquake Preparedness. "This places Israel's residents in imminent danger, threatening our daily reality and throwing us decades back."
Let's return to what's called "national commissions of inquiry." True, under Ottoman or British rule, we wouldn't have expected an earthquake. But take, for example, the 2001 Versailles Wedding Hall disaster, which caused the death of 23 people and led to the appointment of the Zeiler Committee on Building Safety. There's no question as to the seriousness of the committee's members. What is amazing is the disregard of the thousands of pages of their report. Twenty years have passed, and which of the committee's recommendations have been applied? The report's major conclusions remain shrouded in mystery, or shellshock.
Thus, one of the committee's main recommendations was the establishment of professional supervisory institutes that will take responsibility for construction in Israel – a more sophisticated version of vehicle inspection stations. Twenty years later, the institutes will probably begin operating soon. Well, why do it today when you can put it off for tomorrow?
Six private institutes responded to the government's call for applications, issued in May 2016. Operations were to begin in November of that year, but have yet to materialize. Absurdly enough, in the meantime some of the institutes have been receiving compensation from the state due to the delay.
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Israel has known many disasters resulting from faulty planning and construction. Professional inquiries? Come on. The police is unable to conduct them or implement their conclusions. In September 2016, an underground carpark in Ramat Hachayal collapsed, causing six deaths. It took four years to press charges, although conclusions from an investigation of the event had been published by the Technion long beforehand.
Don't say we didn't warn you. Maybe this time, the warning will help. So go ahead and write it down, again.
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