Despite State and national-level action plans to mitigate risks posed by lightning strikes, the country witnessed a record number of deaths due to lightning in 2022. According to data available with the Ministry of Earth Science, as many as 907 people were killed till November 2022 after lightning struck them, a leading cause of death from natural disasters in the country. This is the highest death toll due to lightning in the last 14 years in India.
Heavy toll
A total of 2,183 people were killed across the country in 2022 due to various extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, cold waves, cyclones, lightning, heavy rainfall, and landslides. Among the various disastrous weather events, floods induced by heavy rainfall claimed the lives of around 804 people, the second highest natural disaster event after lightning.
Sekhar L. Kuriakose, member-secretary, Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA), which prepared a first-of-its-kind ‘Lightning Action Plan,’ in the country to mitigate the risks posed by lightning strikes, said Kerala could effectively bring the fatalities due to lightning down from an average 17 deaths to 6-7 deaths a year now. There are some challenges to alerting people about the disastrous event in advance. Nowcast now alerts people about the event in short notice. However, forecasting the intensity of lightning discharge, exact time and location is still a herculean task, said Mr. Kuriakose.
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) earlier introduced “Damini” lightning alert app, which monitors all lightning activity and alerts people in advance. However, the death count shows that the occurrence of lightning flashes and the deaths due to them have been increasing significantly. According to a study by the Delhi-based RMSI, a global leader in geospatial and engineering solutions, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, and Jharkhand have witnessed the maximum lightning strikes in recent years.
Maximum intensity
Further, around 566 lightning events were recorded till November 2022 in the country, according to the data.
Monsoon season account for the maximum number of annual total lightning flash counts in India with around 47.2% followed by summer (41.5%) and post-monsoon season (7.7%). The observed higher magnitude of lightning flash count across India during April-June also indicates the unstable atmospheric conditions and the resultant electrical vigour over the Indian region. The overall fatality rate is also about 0.25 per million per year in India, says the study.
