A lightning that accompanied a heavy downpour is said to have struck three people dead and left six others with injuries.
The tragic incident, it was learnt, occurred at a secondary school in Anambra state, where the victims were said to be playing football on the field during practice ahead of a planned soccer tournament.
The victims were reportedly Senior Secondary School (SS3) students of an unnamed school in Awka South Local Government Area.
The incident happened at the weekend, when the students were doing football practice.
A source said the lightning struck nine students who were playing football with others on barefoot.
“The students were playing on the football pitch with their coach in preparation for a football tournament.
“The coach had ended the training session before the rain started, but some of the students stayed behind to continue playing football.
“Lightning, accompanied by claps of thunderstorm suddenly enveloped the area and the boys were struck in the process.
“A teacher heard the students screaming and running. He ran to the field and saw at least nine students trembling and jerking on the turf,” the source said.
Also, a witness said: “That was when he raised the alarm and people gathered to help. The boys were immediately rushed to the school clinic, from where they were taken to one of the hospitals in Awka.
“Six of the nine boys who were resuscitated and are currently receiving treatment, but three did not survive. Their parents have been contacted.”
It was earnt that the Anambra State Police Command or its police public relations officer, Tochukwu Ikenga, has not yet received any report of the incident.
However, The Daily Crucible provides expert opinion on how lightning kills and what could be done to avoid or manage it, citing the incident of a lightning that struck dead over 300 reindeer in Norway as a reference.
How Did Lightning Kill More Than 300 Reindeer?
Lightning Kills More Than 300 Reindeer
A herd of reindeer was struck by lightning in Norway, killing at least 323 of the animals, officials say. Reindeer are known to huddle together during storms.
More than 300 reindeer were found dead in Norway on Friday, their bodies sprawled across a hillside on the Hardangervidda mountain plateau.
Experts say that lightning most likely caused the grisly sight. But for many people who have seen images and video of the eerie scene that answer has raised some suspicion.
Credit…Ntb Scanpix/Reuters
“Lightning does not strike a point, it strikes an area,” said John Jensenius, a lightning safety specialist with the National Weather Service.
“The physical flash you see strikes a point, but that lightning is radiating out as ground current and it’s very deadly.”
It’s possible that a single bolt could have hit one or two reindeer directly, he said, but the majority of the carnage was caused by ground current. When the electric discharge touches down it spreads out in search of places to travel. The reindeer, with their four hooves on the grass, presented potential pathways where that current could flow.
The majority of the deaths were caused by ground current, not direct lightning strikes.
“The electricity would go up one leg of the body and stop the heart and go down and out another leg,” he said. “In an instant, of course.”
The same thing can and does happen to humans, Mr. Jensenius said, but animals are particularly vulnerable because they have more legs and their legs are further apart. The greater the distance between two legs, the greater the chance that electricity will try to flow through them, and the stronger that charge will be, according to The New York Times report.
The publication added that though the reindeer were in a herd when they died they did not have to be touching to get electrocuted. They only had to be touching the ground within an area about 160 to 260 feet in diameter from where the strike or strikes hit. The 323 reindeer most likely dropped dead from cardiac arrest where they stood and did not go flying in the air, like in some movies. Mr. Jensenius said that it’s likely the lightning would have struck that location whether the reindeer were there or not.
He added that this case is unusual because of the large number of reindeer that were killed, but that it isn’t uncommon for livestock to be felled by lightning. The most cattle ever killed by lightning is 68 according to the Guinness World Record. There are also reports of lightning apparently striking many types of animals, including 53 pigs and 143 goats in China, 16 bulls in Scotland, a giraffe at Disney World, and even one historical account of two bolts killing 654 sheep in Utah.
Lightning is dangerous to people as well, and in June 2016, more than 70 people in India were killed by lightning.
Mr. Jensenius said that we can learn from the reindeer’s misfortune.
“It should be a lesson to the people as to what can happen in a thunderstorm,” he said. “When thunder roars, go indoors.”
Where are the lightning hotspots on Earth?
Researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama have found that lightning strikes more than 100 million times per year in the tropics.
Africa is the continent with the most lightning hotspots, followed by Asia, South America, North America, and Australia. “Lightning strikes are projected to increase 25-50% due to our changing climate,” the researchers said.
