STORMS QUAKES FIRES

1-STORMS destroy Wine crops. 2-Several Quakes in Japan. 3-Fires in New Mexico. 4-Wild fires in Western States. 5-Sault St Marie Fires.

Severe storms destroy Portuguese wine crops

Severe storms this week have destroyed more than 1,700 hectares (4,200 acres) of the port wine crop in 17 parishes in northern Portugal, the Agriculture Ministry said.The ministry said late yesterday that 1,718 hectares (4,245 acres) had been lost in the parishes, which have a total production area of 6,335 hectares (15,650 acres).The figures were still preliminary and a final
assessment would only be made after poor weather conditions – forecast until Tuesday – had passed, Agriculture Minister Jaime Silva said.

Hailstones the size of quail eggs fell on crops on Wednesday in the councils of Alijo, Sao Joao da Pesqueira, Tabuaco and Sabrosa, four of the most important port-producing regions.Silva, who travelled to the region to assess damages, said farmers needed to insure their crops, Lusa news agency reported. “The state spends €20m annually, just to support them, and cannot, at
the first sign of calamity, say it will solve everything, he was quoted as saying.Hail also fell in June last year, causing damage to hundreds of hectares. The government made €1m available to farmers to cover the losses.

Port wine is produced in northern Portugal only, in three regions located in the Douro valley, expanding over 250,000 hectares (nearly 620,000 acres) of land. Vines cover 15.4% of all the land in the region.Portugal sold 93.6 million litres (24.7 million gallons) of port wine in 2005, according to the Port and Douro Wines Institute, or PDWI. Sales last year were worth €405m.Heavy rain hit the country from Tuesday, causing floods and damage from north to the south of the country and injuring 16 in the northern town of Famalicao.

MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.

Several earthquakes registered near shores of Sakhalin, Japan17.06.2006, 03.30

YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, June 17 (Itar-Tass) - Several earthquakes occurred Saturday morning off the shores of the Russian Far-Eastern island of Sakhalin and the Japanese island of Honshu, sources at the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences said. A subterranean strike was registered at 06:29 local time [19:29 GMT Friday] at a point identified as 40 degrees 3 minutes North by 143 degrees 6 minutes East, located in the Sea of Okhotsk at a distance of 135 kilometers away from Sakhalin’s major city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. The magnitude of the quake measured 5.3 points on the open-ended Richter scale. Its epicenter
was located 385 kilometers under the seabed.

The Geophysical Service also registered five quakes off Honshu, the most powerful of them measuring 5.9 points on the Richter scale. Its epicenter was identified at a depth of 33 kilometers below the Pacific Ocean floor and at a distance of 250 kilometers away from Honshu’s northern city of Aomori. Neither of the quakes produced a risk of tsunami. Researchers at the Sakhalin center for tsunamis say a risk of swelling killer waves appears after quakes of no less than 7.0 on the Richter scale.

REVELATION 8:7
7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

New Mexico fires prompt interstate closing and evacuations

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. About two-hundred New Mexico homes have been evacuated and an interstate has been closed by wildfire.Flames touched off by lighting have consumed at least seven-thousand acres in the Gila National Forest. Forty-mile-an-hour winds have driven the fire across a hand-cleared line so residents were told to get out.South of Albuquerque, another fire temporarily forced the evacuation of about 30 homes, closed a casino and resort, and shut down Interstate 25.Lightning sparked some 15 other fires burning up 30-thousand acres of grassland in northeastern New Mexico.People forced from more than a-thousand homes in Arizona and Colorado in the past couple of days have been given the all-clear.

Wildfires Rage In Texas, Other Western States Wildfires Lead to Evacuations

(June 16, 2006)—As a Red Flag Warning for wildfires remained in effect Friday in Central Texas, firefighters in other parts of Texas and in other western states were battling fires fueled by dry vegetation and fanned by gusty winds.Firefighters in New Mexico were trying to stop the spread of flames from fires in the Albuquerque area, where one neighborhood was evacuated.In Colorado, a 700-acre fire about 100 miles south of Denver forced about a hundred people out of their homes.In Arizona, a fire forced the evacuation of about a thousand homes.Fires were also burning in Utah.Dry lightning sparked more than 15 fires Thursday night in Potter County in the Texas Panhandle.

Texas Forest Service spokeswoman Traci Weaver says two of the fires had grown to 1,000 acres each.The fires were burning north of Amarillo on either side of U.S. Highway 87. There were no reports of injuries or structure damage.Weaver says firefighters had mostly contained fires burning Thursday in Denton, Freestone, Van Zandt and Smith counties.A 225-acre fire consumed a barn and 60 bales of hay west of Ponder in Denton County.

Five new forest fires in Sault area ,By SooToday.com StaffSooToday.com,Friday, June 16, 2006
FIRE UPDATE,MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES

Five FireRanger crews from the East Fire Region have been deployed to the West Fire Region to assist with the escalated situation they are experiencing. There were nine new confirmed forest fires yesterday in the following areas: five in Sault Ste. Marie, one each in Kirkland Lake, Timmins, Hearst and Wawa. Two fires required air attack.The weather is forecasting a chance of precipitation with a risk of thundershowers for this weekend across most of the region.

However, the forest fire hazard is still high. Please use caution and extreme care when burning in these conditions. Never leave your fire unattended and be sure it is completely extinguished
before leaving. To report a forest fire in the East Fire Region please call 1-888-863-FIRE (3473).