Cedrenus provides a date of 9 July and a year that corresponds to 550 CE. He recounts that “a terrible earthquake struck everywhere — in Palestine, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Phoenicia — such that many towns and villages were destroyed or damaged, and many people died.” He also reports a rockslide in Botrys and that “the water withdrew for a mile out to sea [at an unspecified location] and then, by command, flowed back.”