On the morning of Saturday, October 26, when all the Israelis rushed to read the details about the night attack on Iran, the Home Front Service app notified about an earthquake in northern Israel.
Warnings went off in dozens of settlements in the northern district, from Haifa to the Golan Heights, but no one felt the tremors anywhere.
After verification, it turned out that the source of the commotion was the army’s bombing of a large underground Hezbollah ammunition depot in Lebanon.
According to the Geological Institute of Israel, the warning system was triggered by a controlled, powerful explosion of a very large explosives storage facility. The system regarded the explosion and the wave that came from it as an earthquake and therefore issued a warning. It contained a call to leave the houses into open space, and if this is not possible, then go to MAMAD or go out to the stairwell of the house.
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Such messages were received by residents of the north
It is noted that the warning is usually triggered at a magnitude of 4.5 and above.
The IDF press service reassured citizens and stopped the spreading rumors, saying that there was no security incident on Israeli territory.
The Golan Heights Regional Council issued a clarification to citizens stating that the IDF destroyed an enemy compound in Lebanon and the detonation of a very large amount of explosives triggered an earthquake alarm. There are no changes in the orders of the Home Front Service.
As a Haifa resident told Ynet, “the phone issued an earthquake warning, although we didn’t feel anything.” “We went outside as expected, but there was no earthquake,” he clarified.
Another Haifa resident admitted that after being accustomed to being woken up at 7 a.m. by rocket attacks, receiving an earthquake alarm was “a bit scary.”
