A 21-year-old girl, Saraswati Sethy, of Barei village under the Kendrapada Sadar police station died following a lightning struck her while she was returning home with cattle from a grazing field.
Police sent the body to the District Headquarters Hospital for postmortem.
With this, the lightning has claimed a total of six persons and injured nine other persons in the district in the last one week. According to District Emergency Officer Rajanikant Mohanty, more than a dozen of people die in the coastal district every year.
Now people of the district are in a fear that lighting has become a major death source after flood and cyclone.
Situation is such that whenever a black cloud hovers in the sky, a sense of panic descends in the concerned area.
According to official sources, most of the lightning victims are farmers and daily wagers as lightning hits them when they work in the open filed.
lightning-related casualties are mostly reported from coastal areas of Rajkanika, Pattmaundai, Ali and Rajnagar. But it has now been seen that lightning attacks are occurring in Mahakalpada block and Kendrapada Township area.
Intellectual masses have demanded that the district administration seek help of experts to conduct a scientific survey as to why lightning is happening in the district in regular intervals and take measures accordingly.