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As portions of Thera collapsed and sank, Galanopoulos suggests, the sea rushed in to fill the void, lowering the water on all eastern Mediterranean shores. As a result, a narrow bridge of land separating the Sea of Reeds from the Mediterranean temporarily widened —just as the Jews making the Exodus were about to flee across it. Shortly afterward, the waters that had surged toward Thera raced back in a huge wave that caught the pursuing Egyptian troops on the land bridge and swept them to their deaths.