When I first saw this map back in 2021, I thought it was exaggerating the size of the Islands near the coast of Tripoli. I saved it and I never checked it back until I heard over the news that Rabbits Islands are remnants of much larger Islands that used to exist facing Tripoli before a devastating earthquake and a resulting Tsunami hit our region back in 1202.
The County of Tripoli was a Crusader state when the 1202 earthquake struck on the Yammouneh fault line. It caused a large Tsunami and destroyed the coastal cities of today’s Lebanon and Syria. It was felt over a very wide area, from Sicily to Mesopotamia and Anatolia to upper Egypt. A magnitude of 7.6 Mw has been estimated with damage up to XI on the Mercalli intensity scale.
As a result, the inhabited large islands that used to exist disappeared into the sea and only few, much smaller ones remain. If we take a closer look at the older map, we can clearly see that one of them had a church dedicated to St Nicolas on it while the smallest was called “Isle des Pendus” (they probably used to hang people there?).
Let’s take a moment to appreciate what we still have!
PLUS961 