Day after lightning strikes in Bihar and UP, toll reaches 125

PATNA/LUCKNOW: The toll due to lightning strikes in several parts of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh on Thursday has risen to 125, officials familiar with the matter said on Friday.

According to the officials cited above, majority of those killed were farmers and labourers who were hit while working in agriculture fields as there was no prior warning about the strikes.

“From Monday, we will be involving all – police stations, media people in districts, district officials – to help relay the advance warning quickly,” said Bihar principal secretary, disaster management, Pratyaya Amrit. Bihar disaster management department has also asked all district magistrates to provide timely information about lightning warnings to the people, the secretary said.

Vice chairman of UP Disaster Management Authority, Lieutenant General (Retd) RP Sahi said the SDMA has tied up with the district authorities to inform people in advance of possible lightening and hailstorm. “The government machinery in the village including the revenue officers and health personnel will be used to alert the villagers about the hailstorm, apart from local police,” he said. He said the SDMA was working on the plan to warn people of thunderstorm at least two hours in advance to enable them to shift to a safer location. The plan will be implemented in all the 75 districts.

Bihar, however, has an appbased early warning system “Indravajra” which works only on smartphones, thereby restricting its reach. The system was introduced last year with the help of US-based Earth Networks. According to government officials, only 46,000 smart phone users have downloaded the app and most of them are in the urban areas whereas 77% of state population of 125.7 million lives in villages. “We are trying to create awareness among people about the utility of the app and requesting them to download it,” said a senior government official, who was not willing to be named.

According to Bihar disaster management department, more than 200 people have been killed by lightning strikes this year, including 95 on June 25. In May, lightning and heavy rainfall in different districts of state resulted in deaths of 20 people, while 12 people died on April 26.