An earthquake struck the region of Palestine suddenly before sunset on 6 December 1033 CE and affected a very wide area that included Tiberias and its surrounding villages. According to Solomon ben Zemah, the event occurred on Thursday, 12 Tevet A.H. 425 (6 December 1033 CE) and was felt throughout Palestine, from Ramla across the Galilee and as far south as the Negev. He reports that the earthquake affected both fortified cities and open villages, including Tiberias and its surrounding settlements. Later testimony preserved by Benjamin of Tudela, quoting an earlier account of the disaster, describes particularly dramatic effects around Tiberias. He writes that "the mountains move like sheep; rocks exploded and in the forests the trees bent over. Wells overflowed." These descriptions indicate extremely strong ground shaking capable of dislodging rocks, violently agitating vegetation, and disturbing groundwater systems so that wells overflowed. Together these accounts portray a powerful earthquake that strongly affected the Tiberias region, producing intense ground motion, rockfalls, and hydrological disturbances that were memorable enough to be preserved in later historical traditions. Some historians have suggested that reports of a later earthquake in February 1034 may have been partially amalgamated with the earlier event in the surviving textual traditions. This possible merging of accounts may help explain the unusually wide geographic area over which effects are reported for what appears to be a single earthquake in these sources.