1,700 died due to lightning in 10 years in Jharkhand

Ranchi: Whenever lightning strikes, the people of Bajarmara village, located in Namkum block of Ranchi, tremble with the fear that something untoward may have happened.

Lightning has caused so much destruction in this village as the name Bajarmara suggests, that probably this is the only village in the country where lightning strikes more than 500 times a year.

There is hardly any family in this village, which has not suffered loss of life or property due to lightning. Similarly, an ancient fort located in Pithoria village of Ranchi is also hit by lightning several times every year. This fort, which has collapsed and turned into ruins, belonged to Jagatpal Singh, who was the king of this area about 200 years ago.

Jharkhand is also one of the six states of the country that have been identified as the most sensitive by the India Meteorological Department with regard to the dangers of thunder and lightning. According to the data of the Meteorological Department, there has been 4,39,828 incidents of lightning in Jharkhand in 2021, it was about 4.5 lakh in 2020.

According to the data, Madhya Pradesh reports the highest number of lightning strikes in the entire country. Last year, there were more than 6.5 lakh lightning strikes in Madhya Pradesh, while Chhattisgarh had about 5.7 lakh, Maharashtra 5.4 lakh, Odisha 5.3 lakh and West Bengal more than 5.1 lakh.

Report suggests that the maximum number of lightning occurs during the pre-monsoon period of May-June. This year, so far 28 people have died in Jharkhand due to lightning in the last 20 days. In the last 10 years, there have been more than 1700 deaths due to lightning here. The number of deaths due to lightning in any year since 2011 has not been less than 150. In 2017, the death toll due to lightning was recorded at 300. Similarly, there were 270 deaths in 2016 and 277 in 2018.