Lightning has killed thousands of people in India, with Madhya Pradesh topping the state with maximum deaths. A total of 2,880 people lost their lives due to lightning in 2021 as compared to 2,862 in 2020, according to the data released by the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
In MP, 496 people died in lightning while Bihar reported 286 deaths in 2021.
Despite thousands of deaths, lightning is still not part of the notified list of disasters in the National Disaster Response Fund.
“Presently, the notified list of disasters eligible for National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF)/State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) assistance, includes 12 disasters namely cyclone, drought, earthquake, fire, flood, tsunami, hailstorm, landslide, avalanche, cloud burst, pest attack and frost & cold wave. The issue of inclusion of more calamities in the existing notified list of calamities, was considered by the 15th Finance Commission,” said a senior official of the ministry.
The commission had observed that the list of notified disasters eligible for funding from State Disaster Response Mitigation Fund (SDRMF) and National Disaster Response Mitigation Fund (NDRMF) covers the needs of the state to a large extent and thus did not find much merit in the request to expand its scope.
“The Ministry of Earth Sciences, through India Meteorological Department (IMD), issues forecast and warnings for thunderstorms and associated weather phenomena five days in advance with regular updates. The assistance to the affected families comes under the purview of the respective state governments,” said the official.
IMD provides forecasts for thunderstorms and associated phenomena such as lightning on all time scales. On five days to 3 hours’ time scales, quantitative alerts are issued by IMD, which are colour coded based on expected impact of the weather occurrence, the official said.
The nowcast for thunderstorms and associated weather such as strong surface winds, hail, lightning and rainfall are issued to the public and disaster managers by IMD for one to three hours in advance.
“The information is specific up to the district/town of occurrence, and impact expected in cases of severe weather associated with thunderstorm occurrence. The information is transmitted through the IMD website, mobile app-based alerts (MEGHDOOT, MAUSAM), SMS, email and Whatsapp messages in local language,” said the official.
At present, three hourly warnings are issued round-the-clock for 732 districts and 1,089 cities/towns all over the country on the IMD website. Closer to the actual event occurrence, the DAMINI mobile App (developed and maintained by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology) provides information about lightning in the vicinity of the user (40 km) during the last 15 minutes as well as its likely occurrence during the next half hour, said the official.
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