The number of deaths due to lightning strikes is on the rise in the country with six such fatalities reported in Chandpur and Magura districts yesterday. In Chandpur, four members of a family were killed by lightning strike in the Boro Railway Station Parjatan area of the district town. The deceased were identified as Ohida Begum (55), her daughter Rehana Begum (25) and her two children, Sabbir (8) and Samiya (10). All of them hailed from Andirpar village in Kochua upazila of Chandpur. Rehana’s sister Shahida Begum told The Independent that the four were struck by lightning the moment they set out for sightseeing at Boro Station Parjatan area. They were critically injured and fell unconscious. They succumbed while being taken to Chandpur General Hospital.
Additional superintendent of police Mizanur Rahman, Chandpur Sadar Model police station OC Md, Nasimuddin and senior sub-inspector Polash Barua also confirmed the deaths, adding that the bodies were sent for post mortem and a case was filed in this regard. In Magura, two people were killed in separate incidents of lightning strikes in Mohammadpur and Sadar upazilas yesterday. Sirajul Islam, OC of Sadar police station, said Moslem Molla (60) of Bashtoil village was struck dead by a thunderbolt while he was bringing his goats from a nearby filed in the afternoon.
In the other incident, Mohammadpur police station OC Tarok Nath Biswas said Biplab Biswas (30) was killed by a lightning strike while he was working on the rooftop of an under-construction building in the afternoon
Meanwhile, an academic article published in ‘Science Direct’ recently revealed that nearly two people die in lightning related fatalities during the pre-monsoon season in the country. The study reported that of the 1,424 lightning deaths in Bangladesh from 2013 to 2017, an average of 1.73 deaths occurred per day in the pre-monsoon season and 0.71 during monsoon.
About half of the lightning deaths are related to agriculture and human fatality rates are consistently high in several north-eastern districts.
Lightning fatalities are frequent in April and especially May during both morning and afternoon, according to an article published in the ‘International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction’, which is affiliated with Elsevier.
Based on 37.2 million strikes in Bangladesh during 2013-17, the Global Lightning Dataset GLD360 network estimated that lightning occurred most frequently in the northeast from mid-April through early June during all hours of the day. Several districts with large lightning strike densities and fatality were the ones with the greatest farming participation.
One of the most common Bangladesh crops is Boro paddy harvested during April and May in several districts with frequent lightning strikes. This may contribute to the rise in pre-monsoon lightning fatalities annually.
Bangladesh lightning fatalities, lightning occurrence, and farming patterns were linked with available data from 2013 to 2017. The greatest concentration of fatalities and lightning occurs during the pre-monsoon season from mid-April to early June in northeastern districts. All three parameters are related in the figure showing how district fatality rates are correlated with stroke density scaled by farming percentage. District stroke density scaled by farming percentage versus district lightning fatality rate in Bangladesh from 2013-2017.