Climate crisis causes a surge over India lightning strike

Climate crisis has caused lightning strikes in India, leading to deaths as residents are getting traumatized due to thunderstorms.

Thunderbolts contain as much as a billion volts of electricity and can cause immense damage to buildings when they hit.

Dozens of people have met gruesome ends this year in the western desert state of Rajasthan, where deaths caused by thunderstorms used to be uncommon.

Faizuddin, a 21 year old victim, is still traumatized from the lightning strike that killed his three friends as they took selfies atop a 400-year-old fort. His voice quivering as he lay wrapped in a blanket at his modest home in Jaipur.

He and his trio of childhood friends had climbed hundreds of steps to a watchtower on top of Amer Fort during a July storm that also claimed eight other lives.

“I was hit by three thunderbolts, one after the other.

“The sound was deafening, it felt like a huge bomb blast. My trousers and shoes caught fire, my limbs became stiff and I couldn’t move,” he said.

Cattle and other animals are often killed or maimed during severe thunderstorms, with one burst of lightning in northeastern Assam state wiping out a herd of 18 elephants in May.

About 2,500 people die in lightning strikes around India each year, according to government figures, compared with just 45 in the United States.

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Zainab/Al-jazeera