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A senior police officer said 11 of the dead were people photographing personalities during a storm near the tower of the popular Fort Amber (or Amero) (a tourist attraction in western Rajasthan).
At least nine more people were killed and nearly 20 more injured in a single lightning strike across the state of Rajasthan. Another 18 people were killed by lightning on Sunday in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, most of whom were reportedly working on farms at the time.
The summer monsoon season in India lasts from June to September each year and is characterized by abundant rainfall and humidity. When humidity levels rise and the earth’s surface temperature is high, ideal conditions are created for storm clouds, such as rain cumulonimbus.
When the Earth’s surface is hot, it heats the air and creates an upward flow of hot air. When air rises through the atmosphere, it cools and forms a cloud. Eventually, it can form an “icy” cloud, the temperature of which is lower than freezing water, and the water vapor it contains turns into ice. As the hot air continues to rise from below, it causes tiny ice crystals to rub against each other, which in turn creates an electrical charge in the cloud – a negative charge is created at the bottom of the cloud and a positive charge is created on the cloud. the top. When the positive and negative charges build up enough, a rapid electrical discharge occurs, which is attracted to the Earth or other clouds.
Lightning has always been an integral feature of the monsoon season in India, but it seems that this phenomenon has become more frequent, intense and deadly recently. According to statistics from the National Disaster Management Service of India, cited by Hindustan Times, In India, lightning causes 2,000 deaths every year. This number is almost double the number of annual deaths recorded in the late 1960s for the same reason.
It is becoming increasingly clear that this increase in thunderstorms is closely related to the global climate crisis. Not only does climate change raise temperatures, but heat also helps evaporate more water from the oceans and lakes and into the Earth’s atmosphere. A warmer atmosphere can also retain more moisture, and this is all great for lightning and thunderstorms.
“Both surface temperature and humidity have increased significantly in recent years. Urbanization, which results in the loss of cover created by trees, also contributes to rising surface temperatures. We believe these two factors contributed more to the increase in lightning strikes. “The rise in lightning deaths may be due to more people being outdoors and possibly affected by lightning in recent years,” SD Pawar, director of the Hindustan Times, told the Hindustan Times. project at Thunderstorm Dynamics, India’s tropical meteorological institute.
Prepared according to IFL Science.
