‘The whole house shook’: Minor earthquake wobbles northern Israel

Residents of northern Israel reported a minor earthquake late Saturday night.

Israelis felt the quake in Tiberias, Safed, Haifa, the Jordan Valley and Beit Shean.

There were no reports of injuries or damage and no warnings about disturbances at sea.

Israel’s Geological Survey said the 3.7-magnitude earthquake began at 11:36 p.m. on Saturday.

The epicenter was around 19 kilometers northeast of Beit Shean, near Israel’s border with Jordan. A series of fault lines runs along the Red Sea, the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley, causing geological activity in the area.

Police said they received dozens of calls to their emergency hotline.

Residents reported several seconds of shaking that shifted furniture around inside their homes.

“It went on for a relatively long time. It moved things around in my house,” a Haifa resident told Walla news. “My desk was moving by itself for four or five seconds.”

“The whole house, the bed, the room shook.”

“My whole body was trembling with fear. I started grabbing my kids to get outside. The bed really moved. All the windows were shaking,” a woman from Tiberias said.

Map of the felt report received after M4.1 20 min ago. No damage reported and significant damage are extremely rare for such a mag pic.twitter.com/vWC0AD281b

— EMSC (@LastQuake) January 22, 2022

Earlier this month, a 6.6-magnitude quake hit off the coast of Cyprus. It was felt in nearby Israel, Lebanon and Turkey.