Heavy rains and lightning that hit the state on Monday night may have brought the much-needed respite from soaring heat but it has also proved fatal for 31 persons in separate incidents, mostly from eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Reports pouring in here at the DGP office confirmed that half a dozen persons each died in Ghazipur and Etawah districts while three each were killed in Sidharthnagar and Kanpur respectively. Two deaths were reported from Maharajganj, Mirzapur, and Gorakhpur while one each died in Gonda, Varanasi, Sultanpur, Amethi, Azamgarh, Ballia and Jaunpur districts.
Most deaths were due to lightning and collapse of mud houses due to incessant rains since Monday night.
The weather reports said that rain and thundershowers occurred at several places in the state with monsoon becoming active in most parts of UP. Several places experienced heavy rainfall during the past 24 hours. The weatherman also predicted rains in most parts of the state during the next 24 to 48 hours with heavy rains at some places.
Rainfall recorded during the past 24 hours were lakhimpur Kheri 10 cm, lucknow 8 cm, Etawah, Kasganj, Unnao, Meerut 5 cm each, Barabanki, Sitapur, Jhansi 4 cm each etc. In Ghazipur, six persons died due to lightning. Three died in Jamania area and were identified as Santosh (35), Gulab (38) and Balkeshwar (40). Three others perished in other parts and included Kundan (14) in Tiyari, a woman in Hamidpur and Juved Khan (40) in Dildarnagar.
Six others were killed in lightning strikes at Jaswant Nagar area of Etawah. Five of them were identified as Anita (17), Mulayam (7), Akash Yadav (14), Tularam (55) and Akash (23). In another incident, three children of a family were killed as the mud house they were living in collapsed in Ambarpur village of Kanpur Dehat. Three children were fatally struck by lightning at a madarsa in Siddharth Nagar. In a similar incident, Hareram Yadav (45) was killed in Jawahin village of Ballia. In Maharajganj, two persons died were fatally struck by lightning and later identified as Kiran (24) and Ratnesh (25). Similarly, two others died in rural Mirzapur due to a house collapse while in Gorakhpur two people were killed due to lightning.