Woman Feet from Death after a Piece of the Western Wall Falls off

An elderly worshipper had a close call on Monday when a 100-kg (220 lb) stone suddenly fell from Jerusalem's Western Wall and crashed at her feet.



The Israel Antiquities Authority said the boulder may have been dislodged by erosion caused by vegetation or moisture in the biblical wall, the holiest place where Jews are permitted to pray.



"I didn't hear or feel anything until it landed right at my feet," Daniella Goldberg, a 79-year-old Jerusalem resident who had gone to the wall in the early morning to worship, told Reuters.



A security camera captured the rare occurrence at the site revered by Jews as a remnant of the compound of the Second Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.



One of Islam's holiest sites, the Noble Sanctuary, where al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock stand, lies above.



The footage showed the stone falling from a height of about seven meters (23 feet) in a nearly vacant section of the wall adjacent to its picture-postcard main plaza, where Jewish worshippers traditionally cram written prayers into crevices.