Lightning Kills 10 in Odisha and Bihar

Lightning struck and killed three minors while they were in Megha Jungle in Cuttack district. The below video powered by Earth Networks Total Lightning Network™ shows the over 4,000 lightning strikes that battered the small area during a 12-hour period on 26 June 2016. The purple strikes represent in-cloud lightning strikes while the yellow strikes represent cloud-to-ground lightning strikes.

A little over a week later to the north in Bihar, lightning struck and killed seven people while injuring six others. The lightning strikes came during a period of extremely heavy rainfall on 5 July 2016. Earth Networks detected a high frequency of 42,521 total lightning strikes in the Patna area during a 12-hour period.

The fatal lightning strike found the victims while they huddled in an open space under the Bela police stations area of Gaya. Many fatal lightning strikes are a result of people failing to seek proper shelter.

CNN reported that during one June monsoon alone, over 57 people died as a result of lightning strikes in the span of one day. The inability to seek proper shelter comes from the lack of advanced warnings for Indian citizens, especially farmers that are out in the open on their fields.