Bangladesh sees dramatic rise in lightning deaths linked to climate change
(BBC) On the day he thought he’d be celebrating his wedding, Mamun buried 16 of his relatives.
They had been killed by lightning on the way to the ceremony.
Dressed in their finest saris and suits, his family members boarded a boat to join Mamun, when a heavy storm struck. As the rain lashed down the boat pulled over and they took shelter under a tin shed on the riverbank, when they were hit.
Bangladesh, which is blighted by extreme weather and heavy storms, suffers an average of 300 deaths by lightning every year, according to the UN.
That’s compared with fewer than 20 annually in the United States, which has almost double the population.
It’s a heavy burden for the South Asian nation, and for many like Mamun, who is speaking for the first time about what happened on that day in August 2021.
The 21-year-old was getting ready at his in-laws’ home in the Shibganj area in the country’s north-west, when he heard the crackle of thunder, minutes before he got the gut-wrenching news.
He rushed to his family, where he was confronted with a scene of chaos and confusion.
“Some people were hugging the bodies,” Mamun recalls, “the injured were crying out in pain… children were screaming. I was at a loss. I could not even decide who I should go to first.”
Mamun lost his father, grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts. His mother wasn’t on the boat and survived the lightning attack.
“When I found my father’s dead body I simply burst into tears. I was so shocked I fell sick,” Mamun says.
Later that evening, the funerals of his relatives took place – the wedding feast they were meant to enjoy was instead distributed to the homeless.
Mamun later got married, but says he doesn’t celebrate his wedding anniversary as it triggers painful memories. “After the tragic incident, now I am really scared of rain and thunder.”
Lightning is a big killer in Bangladesh, claiming more lives annually than floods.
The number of reported deaths due to lightning has also risen steeply, from just dozens per year in the 1990s.
Nasa, the UN and the government of Bangladesh cite increased storminess due to climate change as a reason for the increase in deadly strikes.
“Global warming, environmental changes, living patterns are all factors for the increasing death toll due to lightning,” Md Mijanur Rahman, the director general of Bangladesh’s disaster management division, told the BBC.
Such is the seriousness, that the government has added lightning strikes to the official list of natural disasters the country faces which includes floods, cyclones, earthquakes and droughts.
The majority of victims of lightning are farmers, who are vulnerable to the elements as they work the fields through the rainy monsoon months in the spring and summer.
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