July 30, 2016, Saturday, turned to be a black day for Odisha out of sparkles of lightning. As many as 42 people on that particular day lost their lives by an unprecedented killer lightning. The afternoon sky over Odisha on the day was suddenly covered with black clouds and started moving randomly. The dark sky was silver-lined by intense and frequent lightning with thunder. Continuing for more than two hours, it terrified the terrain tremendously. The day ended with a tragic massive death toll. It was a highest number of deaths due to lightning in a single day in the history of Odisha. Following the trend in the subsequent two days, the toll reached at 56. The disastrous lightning stretched over nine districts for three days and stunned the people of Odisha.
lightning, one of the extreme atmospheric phenomena, doesn’t proclaim as a frontier disaster in our region or in any other parts of the country. It abruptly arrives, lasts for a few seconds and has no long-term sufferings, which may impulse people to forget it and not compare the gravity at par with disasters like cyclones, floods, drought, etc. It’s a fact that the annual death toll due to lightning is sized much bigger than that of any disaster or disasters together. On an average, lightning claims more than 300 human lives yearly in the Odisha. After the 1999 Super Cyclone fury, the post 15 years’ period snatched more than 4,000 people struck by lightning alone. If life loss is the biggest loss that you consider then lightning qualifies for the deadly calamity in the State. Taking into account the mounting life loss, lightning has been declared as the State-specific disaster.
Odisha witnesses lightning throughout the year except for a few months in winter. We should not consider it as a calamity of rainy pick only. Of course, it numerically triggers from June to September claiming more lives. The reason being the farming exposures of people in large numbers are victims of lightning. Another period from April to June, the summer chunk in Odisha sparkles the afternoon with lightning along with thunderstorm ‘Kalabaisakhi’. Herein, we suffer huge losses of property and infrastructure due to storm than casualty due to lightning because of the restricted outdoor exposure. ‘Don’t go outside home in summer afternoon, thunderstorm may distress you,’ they advise out of experience; and that also happens often. It’s like a thin liner of precautionary measure, when we lack a prediction system to rush warning of lightning. Yes, there is no mechanism existent to predict the timing of lightning. But some indicative weather pattern just before a few minutes of lightning may be used as warning.
The cause of lightning, though not easy to common man’s understanding, may educate them to be alert for the real time massacre. We may get it understood to perceive and predict individually to tackle the disaster. Actually, lightning is an electric current generated in thunderclouds and flows inside the cloud and between clouds and crustal erects of good conductors. Electric fields are developed in clouds on collisions with positively-charged top and negatively-charged bottom due to their turbulent movement. A gradual growth of charges overpowers the electric fields to connect to blow up a giant spark, which is called lightning inside the cloud. When the huge negative-charged field of bottom of the cloud connects the positive-charged concentrates around the erections on ground, we call it striking of lightning. This overall idea may enlighten and aware the people to realise the facts by undermining the misconceptions and ignorance about lightning.
The locale under risk of lightning fails to avail any pre-disaster measures as they lack occurrence timing. The real time action plan, although limited in strength, is purely of individuals’ level. Observing the instant clouding of the sky, you may get hints of lightning and a buffer time of 10 to 20 minutes as well between sky-darkening and lightning-strike to rush to the safer place. Enclosed houses, vehicles and pucca-roofed shelters may be safe places during lightning. Avoiding outdoor activities at the onset of cloudy turmoil is the best practice towards taking the precautionary measures. But in the Odishan context, when the victims are largely farmers and labourers, the level of perception and awareness is so poor to carry out the tips; so, the tragic saga of victimisation in lightning continues. Moreover, in the frequency-rising scenario of lightning due to global warming and climate change, it is high time to overspread awareness to the individual extent in order to downsize the fatality.
(Dr Beura teaches in the PG Department of Geology, Utkal University Bhubaneswar-4. Ph: 98612313472 E-Mail: debanandabeura@rediffmail.com)