The exceptional storm damage in Eilat last March is first revealed in the national monitoring carried out by the Environmental Protection Ministry through the city's Inter-University Institute.
In the 5-foot-deep sandalwood coral reserve, the coral's live coverage was lowered by about 25% compared to the previous spring. A more dramatic impact was measured in a 10-foot reef, where a 75 percent reduction was observed relative to the percentage of live coverage measured last summer. At the university's site, the percentage of live coral coverage has dropped to a low unmeasured since 2004 - a time when fish cages in Eilat were operating.