Lightning biggest cause of death by nature in India, shows official data

Among all the deaths caused by the forces of nature in the country, official data shows, that the maximum number of deaths are attributed to lightning.
Bihar and Uttar Pradesh witnessed the most fatalities due to lightning among other states in 2019 and 2020, according to data.

So far, India has released two Annual Lightning Reports — 2019-20 and 2020-21, prepared by Climate Resilient Observing Systems Promotion Council (CROPC), a non-profit organization, that works closely with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) to provide early lightning forecasts.

According to these reports, all the states have reported a drop in deaths due to lightning between 2019 and 2020, barring Bihar. Bihar reported more than an 81 percent jump in such deaths from 221 deaths reported during April 2019 and March 2020 to 401 during April 2020 and March 21.

Uttar Pradesh stood first in terms of deaths in 2019-20 with 293 fatalities. However, the deaths due to lightning in Uttar Pradesh have dropped by nearly 20 percent to 238 in 2020-21. Uttar Pradesh was second among all the states in terms of fatalities due to lightning.