This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

An elderly worshipper had a close call on Monday when a 100kg (220lb) stone fell from Jerusalem’s Western Wall and crashed at her feet.

Israel’s antiquities authority said the masonry may have been dislodged by erosion caused by vegetation or moisture in the biblical wall, the holiest place where Jews are permitted to pray.

“I didn’t hear or feel anything until it landed right at my feet,” said Daniella Goldberg, a 79-year-old Jerusalem resident who had gone to the wall in the early morning to worship.

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A security camera captured the moment at the site, revered by Jews as a remnant of the compound of the Second Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70AD.

One of Islam’s holiest sites, the Noble Sanctuary, where al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock stand, lies above.

The footage showed the stone falling from a height of about seven metres (23ft) in a nearly vacant section of the wall adjacent to its main plaza, where Jewish worshippers traditionally cram written prayers into crevices.

Worshippers had flocked to the site days earlier for Tisha B’Av, an annual Jewish day of mourning that marks the destruction of the two biblical temples in Jerusalem.

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“A great miracle occurred when a stone weighing about 100 kilos fell near the worshipper and did not hurt her,” Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, said in a statement.

The Jerusalem municipality temporarily closed the section for a safety inspection. It is built near piles of rubble believed to date to the time of the Second Temple.

The main Western Wall esplanade remained open.

A 2014 study by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem charted erosion in the different kinds of limestone that make up the Western Wall and said engineers were concerned about its stability.