The victim was hit flash in Uttar Pradesh, India, reaching 49 people in one week. Why so much?
city of Associated press (AP), seven people, mostly farmers, were killed by lightning in a village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, police said on Thursday (7/28).
As a result, the death toll from being struck by lightning rose to 49 in the state this week alone.
At the time of the incident, Tuesday (26/7). farmers took shelter under trees during the heavy monsoon rains. They died instantly. The rainy season in India itself lasts from June to September.
According to police officer Hem Raj Meena, the victims included four family members and several cattle herders near the town of Kaushambi.
This high death toll has prompted the government to issue new guidelines on how to protect yourself during thunderstorms.
“More people die from lightning than from rain-related incidents, even though it’s a time when people [biasanya] dead as a result of floods or other rain-related incidents,” state government spokesman Shishir Singh said.
More than 200 people have died in torrential rains and landslides in Indian states like Assam, Manipur, Tripura and Sikkim. Meanwhile, 42 people have died in Bangladesh since May 17. In addition, hundreds of thousands of people are displaced during the rainy season.
Colonel Sanjay Srivastava, whose organization Lightning India Resilient Campaign works closely with India’s meteorological department, said lightning had killed nearly 750 people across India since April.
This includes 20 people who died in Bihar state in the past two days and 16 in Madhya Pradesh state in central India earlier this month.
Global warming
Sunita Narain, director general of the Center for Science and the Environment, said global warming is playing a role in the increasing number of lightning strikes. A temperature increase of one degree Celsius multiplies lightning by 12.
Srivastava added that deforestation, siltation of waters and pollution contribute to climate change, which in turn causes more lightning.
JP Gupta, director of the meteorological department, said thunderstorms and lightning have increased this year due to rising pollution levels.
“High ground temperatures cause water masses to evaporate, which adds moisture to the atmosphere. The presence of aerosols from air pollution creates favorable conditions for clouds to lightning strikes trigger lightning activity,” Gupta said.
(AP/arh)
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