SHILLONG: In what can be termed as a worrisome situation, number of deaths caused by the lightning in the North Eastern states is more than 30 percent of the national average and the damages caused to the farmers in the region have been a major cause of concern.
This was revealed during a one-day workshop cum interaction meeting on lightning resilient India campaign and Agromet Advisory services in NER region organised at the North Eastern Space Application Centre in Shillong on Saturday.
The meeting discussed on how to make cities villages safe from lighting and how to minimise the damages.
Speaking on the occasion, DG of the Indian Metrological Department, Dr KJ Ramesh said that the Metrological department is now giving 24 hours advance warning on lighting.
Lamenting that the people have not been able to taking enough care to protect themselves from the harms of lightning, he added that lightning resilient India campaign is a noble initiative which was necessary.
“ We want that by March next year, every citizen in the North East should be aware of personal safeguards and the fact that they need to protect themselves and their houses from lightning incident,” he said.
Informing that 65 percent of the farmers are also affected due to lightning, he added that colleges,schools and students were a strong mean of taking the content of the campaign to the last mile.
Stressing on the need to identify the hotspots of the lightning, he added that the Government administrations must also be quick in disseminating information about the lightning warnings.
During the Meeting, different agencies also gave their presentation on how to minimise the damages arising out of lighting and what precautions should be taken by the people.
NEHU vice chancellor, SK Srivastava said that academic institutions have potential in carrying forward the message about the campaign even as he added that little sheds can be constructed in farms for the farmers to take protection during lightning.
Earlier during the presentations made by different agencies, it was informed that North East accounts for 1/3rd of the lightning related deaths and the number of thunderstorms in the country has doubled up since the year 2011.
The presentations also made a revelation that people should not stand under a tree during lightning as it is the primary cause of death during lightning and according to statistics, 321 deaths out of 487 occurred while people were standing under the tree.
It was also informed that the aim of the campaign was to bring down the lightning related deaths by80 percent in the next year three years
A request was also made during the campaign to make NESAC a hub of lightning campaign besides the idea of forming lightning action committees with representatives of the State Government for quick dissemination of the advance warning and information about lightning
NESAC Director, PLN Raju saod that the NESAC providing information to people where lightning takes place through the web portal and now advance warnings can be provided 40-45 minutes in advance but the centre is working on different applications to further increase the time of advance warnings.