Daily Times

Climate change is fuelling an alarming increase in deadly lightning strikes in India, killing nearly 1,900 people a year in the world’s most populous country, scientists warn. Lightning caused a staggering 101,309 deaths between 1967 and 2020, with a sharp increase between 2010 and 2020, a team of researchers led by Fakir Mohan University in the eastern state of Odisha said. “The results indicate a steady increase in lightning activity in India, positioning it as a major killer among climate change-induced natural disasters,” it said. While the report looked at data on deaths, not the number of strikes, it said “lightning activity in India is becoming increasingly unpredictable”. Data showed that the average annual fatalities per Indian state rose from 38 in the period 1967 to 2002, to 61 from 2003 to 2020 — a period when the country’s population has also rapidly grown to 1.4 billion people.