The exclusion corridor was extended as the fissure travelled across Israel, but as the danger approached thousands of residents, visitors and media reporters, filled every vantage point in sight of the blade of smoke. There was an almost deafening murmur as those thousands of people discussed the future, and orthodox Jews prayed and chanted, or beat their chests in lamentation. Without warning the murmur suddenly ceased and within seconds the fissure broke through the wall and the Derekh Yerikho road that overlooked the Kidron Valley. The west side of the valley parted as the fissure dived to the bottom of the valley and a huge 'Ooo' went up from the viewing public. There it stopped. The eastern side of the valley did not part and the ancient wall held as the smoke billowed up its face.
Those observing, both official and unofficial, looked at each other in amazement, no one actually understood what had happened. It was no different in the executive LIMO that contained Benjamin Marks and Heidi Goldbloom,that hovered above the Kidron Valley, some thousand meters above the spectacle.
“Has it stopped,” the PM asked in confusion.
“It looks that way Madam,” answered Randy Cohen, better known as 'Rocky' the principle geologist and Volcanologist at the University of Jerusalem.
Ben Marks was watching the fissure through a pair of military binoculars and was focusing in on the point were the fissure had seemed to have stopped. “It seems as if the fissure has gone beneath the Mount,” he commented. Ben turned to the pilot and asked, “Can you get us to the other side of the mount, exactly opposite the entry point, please.”
The pilot nodded and the LIMO banked away and over the Mount, but after thirty minutes there was nothing to see, other that the curtain of smoke from the Kidron Valley direction.
“OK,” said PM Goldbloom, “Let's get back to The Knesset, we have observers to watch what's going on here, we have other pressing matters to attend to.”