Nigro (2008:251–255) reported that damage to the Batrawy IIb fortifications and buildings on the site show that a violent earthquake brought to a sudden end the earliest city. Archaeoseismic evidence was identified along both the northern and southern city walls, particulalrly in Area B North and Area B South. The earthquake provoked almost the full collapse of the mudbrick superstructure and seriously damaged the 2 m-high stone foundations of the Batrawy IIb [north] city-wall, as evidenced by the cracks and inner collapses detected in the EB IIB city-wall and city-gate in Area B North. After seismic destruction, Nigro (2025:526) reports that an outer wall was constructed in addition to the damaged fortification wall, identified as the Main Inner Wall (MIW) in some publications.

Nigro and Sala (2009:377) reported that the Early Bronze IIB Broad Room Temple F1 also collapsed during the same earthquake, a failure that may have been exacerbated by poor construction practices. The original temple was erected directly over the bedrock, by filling in a shallow depression under the approximate centre of the building with virgin soil and small rock fragments (Nigro ed. 2008: 276–282, plan III). Nigro and Sala (2009:377) further observed that the presence of this depression weakened the central part of the structure, which in fact collapsed during the tremendous Batrāwī IIb EB IIB earthquake.

Nigro (2025:528) reports that the Palace of the Copper Axes (Pillared Unit L.1750) aka the Eastern Pavilion in Area B South, just south of the Main Inner Wall and City Gate L.160 — both part of the northern fortifications — also collapsed during the same earthquake, leaving a debris layer with ashes (F.1748/F.988) which was sealed by a compact floor made of gray clay (F.1740/L.990), a floor which presumably would have been built during reconstruction efforts.

Nigro (2025:522) estimated that the earthquake took place around 2700 BCE, placing it between Early Bronze IIB and Early Bronze IIIA, as well as between site periods Batrawi IIb and Batrawi IIIa ( Nigro 2025: Table 1). These dates are based primarily on ceramic chronology and avoid discrepancies indicated by radiocarbon results ( Nigro 2025:523 n.1).

Nigro (2008:87 n. 30) noted that centres of the North-Central Jordan Valley such as Pella / Tell el-Ḥusn, Tell Abu Kharaz and Tell es-Saʿidiyeh […] were apparently destroyed in the same period and by a similar agent (Bourke 2000, 233–235). Nigro (2008:87 n. 30) also pointed to similar destruction at:

• Megiddo – Such a conflagration apparently caused by an earthquake is attested to also at Megiddo (Finkelstein, Ussishkin and Peersmann 2006, 49–50)
• ‘Ai (Callaway 1980, 147; 1993, 42)
• Jericho / Tell es-Sultan (Kenyon 1957, 175–176, pl. 37a; 1981, 373, pls. 200–201, 343a; Nigro 2006c, 359–361, 372–373)
• Khirbet ez-Zeraqon – phase 3 (EB II) ends in a fierce conflagration (Douglas 2007, 27–28), though it is not surely ascribable to an earthquake