This geographical crossroads in the Eastern Mediterranean were at the time under the rule of the Ottoman Empire (includes portions of what are now Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Palestine and Jordan).

[4] The sequence of events in 1759 began on October 30, with the smaller of the two severe main shocks that year, causing the deaths of 2000 people in Safed and other settlements.

The areas that experienced damage were roughly the same for both the thirteenth and eighteenth-century earthquakes, with the cities of Nablus, Acre, Tyre, Tripoli and Hama being affected.

[4] John Kitto, a writer and biblical scholar, documented details of the earthquakes in his 1841 book Palestine: the Physical Geography and Natural History of the Holy Land and listed first hand details of the events that were provided to him by the Scottish surgeon and naturalist Patrick Russell via his brother (also a doctor) and the Royal Society.

Word came in later on that Damascus, in the south, experienced the same earthquakes, along with several others, and was reporting considerable damage, as was Tripoli, Sidon, and Acre, all cities along the coast.

Acre and Latakia experienced only minor damage to some of their walls, but the town of Safed, located on a hill, was totally destroyed and many of its inhabitants killed.

[1] The large scale temples and courts built in Baalbek during the Roman Empire had deteriorated since their construction nearly two thousand years earlier.

A more recently dated half-meter slip was also found, but it is unknown whether that movement can be attributed to either of the 1759 events or to the Galilee earthquake of 1837.