JERUSALEM (JTA) — An earthquake as powerful as the one that hit Haiti is going to hit Israel, an expert said.
Avi Shapira, chairman of Israel’s National Earthquake Preparedness Committee, told a special Knesset committee Tuesday that "What happened there [Haiti] will also happen here."
The special committee is made up of members of the Foreign Affairs and Defense and Interior and Environment committees.
Shapira said that hospitals and most buildings built before 1980 would collapse in an earthquake. He said about 20 percent of residential buildings also are not constructed following guidelines to prevent quake damage, Haaretz reported.
In recent years, Israel has been the site of several minor earthquakes. The last major earthquake, with a magnitude of 6, was in 1927 and killed 500 people, according to Haaretz. The Haiti earthquake was a magnitude of 7.
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