Many Israeli cities at high risk for earthquake unprepared - comptroller

Many Israeli cities vulnerable to earthquakes are unprepared and have unfortified buildings and schools, despite the lessons provided by the devastation in Turkey last month, the State Comptroller’s Office reported Tuesday.

A high-intensity earthquake is expected to occur within the next 50 years between southern Lebanon and the southern Dead Sea along the Syrian-African Rift, the report said.

Key areas along the rift, including Beit She’an, Tiberias, Safed, Kiryat Shmona and the Hatzor Haglilit, were reviewed in an audit.

How can Israel prepare for an earthquake?

The best preparation against an earthquake is to fortify vital infrastructure, including residential and public buildings, the report said.

The Construction and Housing Ministry has not yet fortified 93% of all buildings previously designated as needing immediate improvement in the reviewed regions, and 70% of schools in need of reinforcement have not yet been renovated, the report said.

The cost of fortifying these 1,124 buildings and 38 schools would be NIS 2.34 billion, it said.

Other preparations, such as logistics and emergency services, were also seen in Turkey as essential in addressing the disaster after the quakes.

The emergency preparedness in Beit She’an and Hatzor Haglilit is low, but it is good in Tiberias and Safed and very good in Kiryat Shmona, the report said.

The Beit She’an Municipality said it welcomed the State Comptroller’s Report, adding that it had been warning and appealing to the government on the issue for almost two decades. Lack of budget implementation is the address to deal with the issue, it said, not Beit She’an and other local authorities, which “do not have the ability and budgetary resources to strengthen buildings or upgrade infrastructure, bridges and access roads.”

“The Municipality of Beit She’an has been working in recent years to improve its preparedness for earthquakes by restructuring, improving access roads and purchasing equipment for the municipal emergency warehouses, holding courses and training for emergency response teams and holding training for the authority’s officials,” it said. “We will, of course, work to correct the deficiencies mentioned in the report with the means at our disposal, without forgetting that the only solution that exists is an immediate government budget to strengthen buildings in the cities that are at risk, and only then will the worst be avoided.”

The Construction and Housing Ministry said it recognized the importance of the issue of fortifying buildings. In recent years, many ministry-owned residential public housing buildings had been strengthened, it said.

The ministry said it has had no dedicated budget on the issue because the government had not assigned it the task.

“We note that as part of the ministry’s budget summary for the years 2023-2024, tens of millions of shekels will be allocated to build an earthquake preparedness plan,” the ministry said.

The State Comptroller’s Office said the report was another entry in a series of audits that indicated a long-standing failure in Israel’s earthquake preparedness.

“The reminder we received from the earthquake in Turkey should shake the foundations of the government,” State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman said, adding that the situation “should deprive the prime minister and government ministers of sleep.”

He urged the prime minister and the ministers of defense, construction and housing, interior and finance to work in tandem with municipal governments to quickly address the issue.

The February 6 earthquakes in Turkey at the north end of the Syrian-African rift resulted in the death of more than 55,000 people and 130,000 injured in Syria and Turkey. The disaster caused the collapse of more than 12,000 buildings and left 500,000 people homeless, the State Comptroller’s Report said.