One killed, seven injured in lightning

Dhenkanal: One person was killed while seven others injured in lightning strikes at different places in Odisha on Saturday.

A woman was killed when lightning struck her at Badadwar village in Nayagarh, while six persons of Kankadasada village sustained injuries in lightning strike while they were collecting Tolla in the nearby Similpal forest in Dhenkanal district. One other person was also injured in lightning at Jalada village in the district.

All the injured were admitted to Parjang hospital where they are undergoing treatment.

Sources said in last fortnight, as many as nine persons have been killed while 11 others injured in lightning incidents across the State.

Even as there is no let up in the number of lightning related deaths with the toll having already touched nearly 70 between April and May this year, the State government is mulling to introduce a special mobile application to provide advance information on lightning alert so that people can be warned to move to safer places, sources informed.

Odisha plans to collaborate with the US-based Earth Network to install lightning detection system in the state to reduce the toll.  The mobile application will be developed to alert smartphone users if they are in a lightning zone while non smart phone users can also  get the  alerts through SMSs and calling on State Control room 1070 and District Control room 1077 to get help, special relief commissioner B P Sethi had said last week.

Lightning is the biggest killer among all the natural disasters in the State and continues to claim more than 400 human lives on an average per year.

Meanwhile, several parts of Odisha experienced heavy pre-monsoon showers on Saturday. The local Bhubaneswar Regional Meteorological Centre of the IMD forecast that the intensity of the rainfall likely to increase from June 5.