Between April 2020 and March this year, India witnessed 18.5 million lightning strikes, marking a significant 34% increase in 13.8 million bolts from the blue in a similar period the previous year, a study by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and Down to Earth found.
Some of the states that have been at the receiving end of these strikes are Punjab, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Puducherry, Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal. In Punjab, the increase in number of lightning strikes has been a staggering 331% annually, while in Bihar — where 401 people lost their lives to lightning strikes during the year — there was a 168 per cent rise. Overall, 1,697 people were struck down dead by lightning in India between March 2020 and April 2021.
Experts are of the view that the increase in incidents of lightning strikes are owing to climate change.
“There is growing scientific evidence that climate change may be sparking more lightning across the world. Rapid urbanisation and population growth have guaranteed an intensification of human exposure to lightning hazards,” says Down To Earth managing editor Richard Mahapatra.
Global studies are now emerging about this phenomenon. A 2015 California University study has projected that an increase in average global temperatures by 1ºC would increase the frequency of lightning by 12%.
Another paper, soon to be published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, warns that the frequency and intensity of lightning strikes in India are expected to increase by 10-25% and 15-50%, respectively, by the end of the century.
National Disaster Management Authority listed thunderstorms accompanied by lightning strikes (usually in the pre-monsoon and monsoon months) are the single-largest killers among natural disasters in India.
Experts have found that a foreboding dimension of the rise in incidents of lightning strikes is their link to growing forest fires. “Scientists from the Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University in Srinagar, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, have studied the concentration of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in different weather conditions in the central Himalayan region. They have found a five-time higher concentration of CCN in the atmosphere during forest fires as against during rains. In May 2021, researchers in Australia linked excess CCN to the increased number of lightning strikes during the 2019-20 Australia forest fires,” says Kiran Pandey, programme director of CSE’s environmental resources unit.
However, India has made some progress to mitigate the adverse effects of lightning strikes. The rise in fatalities prompted the India Meteorological Department (IMD) to start lightning forecasts from April 1, 2019. Lightning India Resilient Campaign (LRIC), a joint initiative of several bodies such as Climate Resilient Observing-Systems Promotion Council (CROPC), National Disaster Management Authority, IMD, Union ministry of earth sciences and others aims to reduce the number of deaths due to lightning strikes to less than 1,200 a year by 2022.
A senior reporter with Down to Earth, Akshit Sangomla said the LRIC campaign helped bring down lightning-related deaths by more than 60% within two years of its launch. “Dedicated efforts by governments of states like Andhra Pradesh and Odisha have led to a 70% reduction in fatalities,” Sangomla added.
CSE’ Kiran Pandey said the recorded incidents of lightning revealed that the seasonality of bolt is different each state, and laid stress that the lightning risk management programme is customised for each state according to their seasonality, frequency of occurrence and intensity.
“States should undertake lightning micro-zonation for the regions inside their boundaries, depending on their geography, to handle the disaster and death risks better. These are LRIC’s recommendations and they make a lot of sense,” says Pandey.
Mahapatra was of the view that even though fatalities from lightning strikes cannot be reduced to zero, their numbers can be decreased.
He spoke on the need to create general awareness about universal safe practices, such as staying indoors for up to 30 minutes after the last flash if the time between a lightning flash and thunder is less than 30 seconds. “The next steps would involve making use of the evolving science and technology on the subject and decentralising predictions and risk management,” Mahapatra said.
