Locust swarm of biblical proportions strikes Egypt, Israel before Passover
▻http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/04/17185324-locust-swarm-of-biblical-proportions-strikes-egypt-israe
The timing of the insect invasion is eerie, because the Bible’s Book of Exodus tells of 10 plagues that hit Egypt before Moses and the Jews were allowed to leave for the Promised Land. A plague of locusts was the eighth on the list — but Pharaoh didn’t relent until the 10th plague, which killed off all of Egypt’s firstborn sons. Every year at Passover, Jews commemorate how they were spared.
This time, even the Israelis are worried that the locusts are out to get them. “They may not have ruined Pharaoh, but they could ruin us,” one farmer, Tzachi Rimon, told Israel’s Channel 10 TV.
Locust swarms have the potential to wipe out agricultural crops, and it’s been eight years since such a serious assault has hit Egypt’s Cairo region and Israel, said Keith Cressman, the senior locust forecasting officer at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s headquarters in Rome.