Deaths from lightning strikes have gone up significantly in recent times, inducing alarm among many.
On May 6, a total of 24 people were killed after being struck by lightning.
Five of them were from the Maguri village under Damiha union of Tarail upazila in Kishoreganj district – three farmers and two young men.
In 2011, a total of 179 people were struck and killed by lightning, 58 getting killed in the month of May alone.
During April and May alone of the following year, lightning killed a staggering 152 people.
Meteorologically, April and May happen to be that part of the year in Bangladesh, when the frequency of Kalbaishakhi (Nor’wester), rises. This seasonal storm is typically accompanied by lightning.
According to Disaster Forum, a Dhaka-based network on disaster preparedness and risk reduction, the actual level of casualty from lightning could be much higher because many cases go unreported.
Disaster management expert Gawher Nayeem Wahra said such deaths have been on the rise because people lack awareness.
These deaths could be avoided if the met office could effectively broadcast early warning of the impending thunderbolt, he said.
Of the 24 deaths reported on May 6, as many as 11 were in the country’s northeast, better known as the Haor area of greater Mymensingh, including Kishoreganj, Netrakona, Jamalpur and Tangail.
Wahra said: “Shortage of adequate tall trees in the Haor areas could be a reason for the rise in the number of deaths from lightning in the Haor basin.”
Geologically, the Haor areas comprise vast stretches of open spaces and wetlands, which remain under, water most of the year and turn into arable lands during the dry season.
According to unofficial data, at least 108 people were injured after getting struck by lightning in 2012.
Meteorologist Hafizur Rahman from Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) claimed that thunderbolt warnings were issued regularly but people were not aware of them.
He said people only paid heed and took evasive measures if there was an alert for a disaster that had the magnitude of a cyclone.
Executive Director of Centre for Global Change (CGC) and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Ahsan Uddin Ahmad said the language that the met offices used for broadcasting warning was not easily comprehensible to the common man.
The thunderstorm warnings that the Hong Kong Observatory issues are intended to give short-term – within one to a few hours – notice of the likelihood of thunderstorms affecting any part of the territory.
Once issued, the warning is broadcast over radio and television, and announced on the Observatory’s website and the Dial-a-Weather system.
Climate activists, often link the rising cases of death from lightning to the changing global climate, especially global warming.
Climate change expert Ainun Nishat said global lightning activity would increase if average global temperature rose.
Ahsan Uddin, however, said the link between the increased lightning activity and global warming was yet to be proved.