Palestinians awake late on Tuesday night may have felt the earth shiver for the second time this month. The quake at 21:42 GMT Wednesday 21 July 2004 ( 00:42, Jerusalem time) measured 3.6 on the Richter scale.
According to seismologists, the epicenter was located between Jenin city and Al-Yamoon town in the northern West Bank (Lat. 32.456 long. 35 256) at a depth of approximately 10 km.
The tremor follows hot on the heels of a slightly larger quake in the first week of July. In February, similar seismic activity notched 5.1. Seismologists are bracing themselves for a potentially damaging quake of a magnitude up to 6.5 in the near future, anticipated in the Jordan Valley area.
Dr. Jalal Dabeek, Director of the Earth Sciences and Seismic Engineering Center (ESSEC) at An-Najah University said that the main danger from earthquakes is in the structural system of the Palestinian buildings. "They are built without the minimum requirements of seismic considerations," he said.