Bihar: Poor Farmers, Cattle Grazers and Farm Labourers among those who Succumbed to Lightning Strikes

Patna: Poor farmers, landless farm labourers and cattle grazers were the main victims of lightning strikes in various districts in Bihar which has killed 92 people in the past two days. All the victims were at work, outside their houses, as they were neither informed about the likely threat nor alerted or advised to not venture outside by concerned officials of the department, in light of bad weather conditions.

Bhushan Yadav, Santosh Yadav, Shubhkala Devi, Chandrakala Devi, Sonfi Sahni, Rashid Sada and Anand Mahto, all fell to lightning strikes. They had another thing in common – they were either small farmers or farm labourers, busy sowing paddy and transplanting seedlings in their fields when lightning hit them.

Similarly – Kundan Yadav, Parmod Kumar, Vipin Kumar, Ramesh Mandal, Parwesh Paswan, Mithun Paswan, Ramji Singh – cattle grazers, were killed in the incidents of lightning strikes.

Yadav and Kumar were killed by lightning in Madhepura district, when they were grazing their cattle. Similarly, Singh and Mandal were killed by lightning in Bhagalpur district, also while grazing cattle.

According to local reports, 13 people, most of them small farmers who were sowing paddy, were killed by lightning in Gopalganj district alone. In Muzaffarpur district, Bhushan Yadav (65), Santosh Yadav (28), Shubhkala Devi (26), Surendar Mukhiya (68), Partosh Kumar Paswan (24) also died while working in fields while cultivating paddy. Three women, including Chandrakala Devi, were struck by lightning in a paddy field in Darbhanga district. Chandrakala Devi was killed while the others are injured.

Two farmers were killed by lightning in West Champaran while they were engaged in paddy cultivation. In Sheohar district, Sonfi Sahni was killed by lightning while working in a paddy field.

Vipin was killed by lightning in Aurangabad district while grazing cattle; Parvesh and Mithun were killed by lightning in Darbhanga while doing the same.

A day after unprecedented deaths due to lightning strikes (the biggest number of casualties in a day was reported in Bihar) in recent years, the government has appealed to people to avoid going outside, particularly in the field, till June 28.

After the loss of lives due to the failure government agencies on the ground, the Bihar Disaster Management Department (DMD) issued a full-page advertisement in local Hindi dailies on what to do and not to do in order to protect oneself from lightning strikes. In its advertisement, the department also urged people to download the mobile app ‘Indravajra’ to access predictions for thunderbolts in their area.

The weather has been rough since Thursday morning, with heavy rainfall with thunderstorms and lightning expected.

The local IMD has issued an alert across Bihar for heavy rainfall on June 26 and 27. S.K. Patel, an IMD official, said that 10 districts of north Bihar, including Araria and Kishanganj, are on red alert, while 13 districts are on orange alert. The water level is rising in the Koshi, Mahananda, Ganga and other rivers, due to heavy rains in their catchment areas since last week.

Bihar has been witnessing an increase in incidents of lightning strikes in the last few years. The DMD had launched the mobile app Indravajra and introduced an early warning system with the help of US-based Earth Networks, by signing an MoU last year. However, the plans remained confined to paper.

The much-hyped Indravajra can only be downloaded on smartphones. This raised eyebrows with poor farmers, farm labourers and cattle grazers not having access to smartphones.

In a bid to downplay the failure of the government to warn people, Pratyaya Amrit, DMD Principal Secretary, who has been around for several years and is considered close to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, reportedly asked all district magistrates to provide timely information about lightning warnings to the people.

As has been the case in the past, DMD officials blamed concerned officials of districts, blocks and panchayats for not informing or warning people.

As per official data of the DMD, more than 200 people have been killed by lightning strikes this year, including 92 on June 25, in two dozen districts. In 2019, 170 people were killed by lightning in Bihar.

According to the weather office, lightning strikes are usually reported between the months of June and September, coinciding with the monsoon. The monsoon hit Bihar on June 13 and the state has received more than normal rainfall over the last two weeks.