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03/04/2010 08:30 PM Killed	5 people	0.0	U	North Rift Kenya
Five villagers struck dead by lightning SHARE BOOKMARKPRINTEMAILRATING By NATION CorrespondentsPosted Thursday, March 4 2010 at 23:40 Five people in different parts of North Rift have been killed by lightning. A couple and their child died on Thursday in Katalel village, Keiyo District. Two other members of the family sustained serious injuries in the 8.30pm incident. “The family was asleep when their wooden house was hit by lightning, killing the three instantly,” said area police boss Angelus Karuru. Property worth thousands of shillings was lost, he said. Mr Karuru said the injured were taken to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret for treatment. Hospital workers described their condition as stable. Causing damage “Residents should consider installing arresters in areas prone to lightning to avert such calamities,” the police boss said. Heavy rains have been pounding parts of the North Rift, causing damage to crops and vegetation. In Pokot Central District, a man and a woman were struck dead by lightning and seven others seriously injured in Mosop village on Wednesday night. District commissioner Jeremiah Were said the nine were struck during a downpour.It took Kenya Red Cross Society volunteers and police officers 10 hours to reach the village, located on a hill, to help the victims.
03/04/2010 02:00 PM unknown	lightning closes ski lifts	0.0	U	Huntsville Ut USA		ski lifts closed due to lightning		Skiing
Lightning forces Snowbasin to shut down lifts By Standard-Examiner staff Last Edit: Mar 4 2010 - 3:14pm HUNTSVILLE -- A fast-moving storm carrying lightning, snow and strong winds has forced Snowbasin ski resort to close operations this afternoon. They planned to reopen at 3:15 p.m. for the remaining 45 minutes of their normal operating day. A spokeswoman said the gondolas and lifts were closed around 2 p.m. "We are closed down because of lightning," said spokeswoman Jody Holmgren. "When we have lightning strikes, we have to wait at least 30 minutes after the last strike before we can reopen the lifts. The safety of people here on the mountain always comes first, but we have been waiting for this storm for some time." Holmgren said Snowbasin also closed temporarily Wednesday afternoon when lightning hit the resort but lifts were able to resume operations after the required waiting period. The storm moved in from the southwest in rapid gusts after the morning was deceptively sunny and warm. Ogden started getting scattered rain around 1 p.m., but by 2 p.m. the sky was dark and winds were whipping clouds into the mountains. The National Weather Service placed the Top of Utah under a winter storm advisory, saying the storm would start in the valley with rain turning to steady snow through the afternoon. Snow could be heavy through the evening and Friday morning before skies clear Friday afternoon.
02/27/2010 12:00 PM unknown	news story	0.0	U	Greensboro NC USA		bad safety info		Bad Safety info
Severe Weather Awareness Week Continues Grant Gilmore Created: 2/27/2010 11:25:33 AM Updated: 3/2/2010 10:27:32 AM Read Comments Recommend Print Article Email This Article Larger Smaller Greensboro, NC -- Monday kicked off Severe Weather Awareness Week in North Carolina. WFMY News 2 meteorologist Grant Gilmore got answers for you and has compiled this list of important things to keep in mind when severe weather strikes your area. Severe Thunderstorms Severe thunderstorms are defined as thunderstorms that contain either hail the size of a quarter, one inch in diameter, winds of at least 58 mph or has the potential for a tornado. Severe thunderstorms may also have dangerous lightning, but a warning will never be issued due to the presence of lightning alone. During severe weather season the best defense against these threats is to stay informed by listening to local weather forecasts and to have a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather radio. When a severe thunderstorm is approaching your area the best thing to do is to stay away from windows and to seek shelter in an interior bathroom or closet. Lightning A Lightning bolt carries 3,000 amps and 1 billion volts of electricity. In a typical year, there are around 500,000 lightning strikes in North Carolina alone with over 20 million strikes worldwide. Most lightning fatalities occur when people are caught outside playing, boating or golfing and because of the abundance of outdoor activities in North Carolina we are especially vulnerable to lightning strikes. If caught outdoors, stay away from trees, telephone poles and other tall objects. If lightning activity increases dramatically, crouch down on the balls of your feet and get as low as possible. If you're outdoors, move indoors if possible as soon as thunder is heard. Stay away from electrical devices like computers and corded telephones. Anytime you hear thunder, you should stay indoors for at least 30 minutes after the last clap of thunder.
02/26/2010 05:30 PM Killed	family of 6 die	0.0	U	Jece village Tsolo Eastern Cape		in a hut		Indoors
Family of six dies in lightning strike 26 February 2010, 09:07 A family of six, including a three-year-old boy, died when they were struck by lightning during a thunderstorm at Jece village, Tsolo, Eastern Cape police said on Friday Superintendent Mzukisi Fatyela said the six were in a hut around 5.30pm when the incident happened. Their names will be released once their relatives have been informed, said Fatyela. - Sapa
02/25/2010 04:00 PM unknown	news story	0.0	U	Oktibbeha County Ms USA		bad safety info		Bad Safety info
Protect yourself from lightning Reported by: Julee Brown Email: jbrown@wtva.com Last Update: 2/25 12:08 am Print Story \| Lightning kills. Oktibbeha County, Miss. (WTVA) Lightning is a killer. It claims more victims each year than do snowstorms, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Here's how to protect you and your property against one of nature's most lethal weather phenomena. It starts with a brilliant flash of light and follows with a loud boom of thunder. It can lighten a darken sky and wake up the toughest guy. Authorities say if you can hear thunder you are within 10 miles of a storm and can be struck by lightning. Just ask Kim Jones, she she was stuck by lightning while talking on the phone. "When I was talking on my land line phone lightning hit the top of the complex and it came through the phone and knocked me out of my chair" says Jones. But she's not the only who knows how powerful a bolt can be Dennis Grisham remembers when his 10 beef cows died in a flash, all under the same tree. "A neighbor called me and told me he thought I had some cows that had been struck so I drove over here and found them under this tree one was as far away as 100 feet," says Grisham. Climatologist Dr. Mike Brown says "lt's not unusual to hear about animals being killed by lightning because they tend to get under shelter and that electricity not only radiates through the tree but it also can go down in the ground and electrocute them through their hooves. Climatologist Dr. Mike Brown and Dr. Charles Wax of MSU have compiled a 7 year study on the number of lightning strikes in Mississippi. In Oktibbeha County it is estimated there are as many as 6800 lightning strikes per year, 7900 in Lee County, and close to to 12,000 in Monroe County Dr. Brown says, "In fact each strike often contains anywhere between 7 and 14 strokes and the initial strike you see most often there's going to be approximately 10 bolts down that same channel." The lightning that strikes people is a cloud-to-ground flash. While there is no way to completely stop lightning, if you're careful, you can avoid injury or death. "You can't jump out of the way," says Dr. Wax, "you can get out of the way of a tornado or hurricane but you can't get out of the way of a lightning bolt." Here are a few simple rules: Rule #1 Follow the 30/30 rule. If you're outside and you see a flash of lightning, begin to count 1-one thousand, 2- one thousand and 3-one thousand. If you reach 30 before you hear the thunder, that means you are too close to that storm. Don't return outside until 30 mins after the last thunder you heard. Rule #2: Avoid being out in any open areas Rule #3 Don’t stand under tall objects like trees or towers. As tall objects are easy targets, If you are in a house during a lightning storm, avoid taking a shower or bath, stay away from electrical outlets and things plugged into them, and don't use phones or computers. As of November of 2009, 34 people died from lightning strikes in the United States with 1 death in Mississippi. new link
02/24/2010 12:00 PM unknown	news story	0.0	U	Austin Tx USA	cbs7	bad safety info		Bad Safety info
Lightning: Dangerous and Deadly 2/24/10 Texas Division of Emergency Management February 24, 2010 Austin, Texas - Lightning is especially dangerous because it does not depend on severe storm conditions. It can occur during any storm, no matter how small, and can strike miles away from the storm itself. Severe Weather Awareness Week in Texas is set for Feb. 21-27. The Texas Division of Emergency Management and the National Weather Service remind you Severe Weather Awareness Week is a good time to talk to your friends and family about emergency preparedness. Here are some important tips to protect yourself and your family. Lightning can strike as far away as ten miles from the area in which rain is falling. That’s why you should follow the “30/30” lightning safety rule. If you cannot count to 30 between the time that lightning flashes and the time that you hear the rumble of thunder, it is not safe to remain outside. Remain indoors for 30 minutes after hearing the last sound of thunder. Lightning tends to strike tall objects as well as metal objects, and can travel through moist soils for dozens of feet. Move into a sturdy building and stay away from windows and doors. For increased protection, avoid electric appliances or metal plumbing. Stay off the telephone. If you are outside, the interior of a car, truck or bus is relatively safe from lightning. To be safe, do not touch metal on the inside of the vehicle. The outside bed of a truck is a deadly location. Do not lean against a car or truck -- get inside the vehicle quickly. If you are outdoors with no shelter available, stay low. Move away from hills and high places, and avoid tall, isolated trees. Do not touch metal objects, such as tennis rackets, baseball bats or golf clubs. Do not ride bicycles, or lean against fences or metal sheds. If you feel your hair suddenly stand on end, it means you may be a lightning target. Crouch low on the balls of your feet and try not to touch the ground with your knees or hands. Avoid wet areas that can conduct the lightning charge.
02/23/2010 12:00 PM unknown	news story	0.0	U	Selma Al USA		bad safety info	N/A	Bad Safety info
Severe Weather Awareness Week is at hand By Leesha Faulkner (Contact) \| Selma Times-Journal Published Tuesday, February 23, 2010 This bolt of lightning from a summer storm might not look dangerous, but people should be aware that lightning strikes and should take precautions to avoid being outdoors during thunderstorms. SELMA — Severe Weather Awareness Week is all about preparation. “Preparedness is everyone’s responsibility,” said Rhonda Abbott, interim director of the Dallas County Emergency Management Agency. “There may be people out there who have never been personally touched by the adverse effects of weather, but there is no part of Dallas County or Alabama that is save from severe weather.” This week is an annual public awareness campaign to draw attention to severe weather preparedness. The National Weather Service started this event in 1974, following the April 3-4 super-outbreak of tornadoes in the Midwest, South and East. Overall, spotters and weather service stations reported 148 tornadoes. About 315 people lost their lives and another 5,000 were injured. Although the National Weather Service began the effort, additional partners have joined. For instance the Dallas County Commission and City of Selma joined with The Selma Times-Journal Sunday to publish and insert a weather guide in home-delivered newspapers. “For $500 it’s incredible information with a lot of circulation,” said Kim Ballard, probate judge and chairman of the commission. The commission wants the public to take the booklet and make a conscience effort to prepare for the worst. “by taking a few minutes to educate yourself about severe weather safety procedures, you can save your life or someone else’s life,” Abbott said. Today’s focus is on lightning. The summer months of June through September are the deadliest for lightning. In an average year, three people will be stuck and killed by lightning in Alabama, according to the National Weather Service in Birmingham, and at least six will be injured. Keys to lightning safety: - Move inside a well-constructed house, a large building or an all-metal vehicle. Stay away from electrical appliances and do not use the telephone. - If you are in a boat, get off the water and into a substantial building or at least into an enclosed and all-metal vehicle with the windows up. If you are caught in an open metal boat, lie down in the boat with cushions between you and the metal sides and bottom. - If you are caught outdoors during a storm and are too far away from appropriate shelter, you only have one last-ditch effort to lower your chances of being directly struck. Crouch down low, but do not lie flat on the ground. If in a ravine or valley, be alert for flooding. The best advice is to check the forecast and watch the sky for storm development and not put yourself in the situation where you are out in the open when a thunderstorm occurs. - Move away from motorcycles, scooters, golf carts, bicycles, tractors and other metal farm equipment. Avoid wire fences, clotheslines, metal pipes and drains, railroad tracks and any other metal surfaces. - Avoid isolated trees. Stay away from the tallest trees. If caught in the woods, pick a small grove of trees as your shelter and stand at least 5 feet from the trunk of the nearest tree to avoid flying bark if the tree is struck. - Avoid standing in a small isolated shed or other small ungrounded structure. - If you are with a group of people in an open area and cannot get to appropriate shelter, spread out before you take last-ditch efforts.
02/22/2010 08:00 AM Injured	2 of 4	0.0	M	Eglin Reservation Fl USA				Military,Outside

02/22/2010 08:00 AM Injured	3 of 4	0.0	M	Eglin Reservation Fl USA				Military,Outside
Lightning strike injures 4 military trainees The Associated Press Published: Monday, February 22, 2010 at 1:46 p.m. Last Modified: Monday, February 22, 2010 at 1:46 p.m. EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE - Four military personnel are injured after getting hit by lightning during a training exercise on a Panhandle Air Force base. Each was taken to the Fort Walton Beach Medical Center on Monday and listed in stable condition. The Niceville Fire Department and Eglin Air Force Base emergency officials responded around 8 a.m. Niceville Fire Chief Tommy Mayville says the men had signs of lightning strikes, and two appeared more seriously injured. A base spokesman said no further information was immediately available about the four, including what branch of the military they served. In 2006, six Army Rangers were struck by lightning at Camp Rudder on the Eglin Reservation.
02/22/2010 08:00 AM Injured	Michael L Fox 4 of 4	0.0	M	Eglin Reservation Fl USA		getting into humvee		In a Car or Vehicle,Military,Outside
Sergeant, 3 trainees hit by lightning during Air Force exercise Comments 0 \| Recommend 0 February 22, 2010 01:42:00 PM WENDY VICTORA / Florida Freedom Newspapers EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE - Three Air Force trainees and their sergeant were hit by lightning during a training exercise Monday north of Niceville. The three students (identified as Senior Airman Michael L. Fox, Airman First Class Ryan F. Cleaver and Airman Basic Duriel I. Harris) were taken by ambulance to nearby Fort Walton Beach Medical Center early Monday, where they were treated and released. The Air Force said the instructor (identified as Staff Sgt. John T. Dean) will remain hospitalized overnight for observation. The men were assigned to the Tactical Air Control Party at Hurlburt and were training nearby on the sprawling Eglin Air Force Base. They were with Detachment 3 of the 342nd Training Squadron, according to Jeremy Webster with the First Special Operations Wing's public affairs office. Emergency officials from Eglin and Niceville Fire Department removed the victims from the woods near Anderson Pond. “All four of them had signs of a lightning strike, but two of them were worse than the others,” said Niceville Fire Chief Tommy Mayville. “There weren't any actual exit wounds but there were markings on them where the lightning went in and came out.” He said all four were conscious when rescue crews arrived on the scene. The men were exiting their canvas-topped Humvees during an 8 a.m. thunderstorm when the accident happened, according to a Hurlburt Field press release. The sergeant was directly struck by lightning. He was admitted to Fort Walton Beach Medical Center, where he was listed in good condition, the release said. The three students were checked out at the hospital before being released for duty. The airmen had left early Monday morning for the exercise, which involved spending five days in the field, Webster said. They were originally going to do a navigation exercise on foot, but the curriculum was modified due to the inclement weather. Instead, the group was doing vehicle navigation. The team included a medical personnel member. “Though training is paramount, our people and our safety are our top priority,” Col. Gregory J. Lengyel, 1st Special Operations Wing Commander was quoted as saying in the press release. “We are proud of our safety record and will continue to ensure we practice stringent safety measures to minimize incidents like this.” The incident is under investigation by a board of officers, according to the release. The storm passing over the Niceville area at that time involved only about five to 10 lightning strikes, according to Jack Cullen, meteorologist for the NWS in Mobile. “They must have been really unlucky,” Cullen said. “It wasn’t, by normal definition, a severe thunderstorm.” But, he added, all thunderstorms produce lightning, which makes them dangerous. “It’s just unfortunate that they happened to be outside at that time,” he said. Florida leads the country in the number of fatal lightning strikes. From 1959 to 2008, Florida has had 455 lightning fatalities, compared to the No. 2 state, Texas, with 207 in the same time period. Between 1999 and 2008, Florida had 70 deaths, compared to the second highest state, Colorado, with 28. “Part of that there are going to be more people outside in Florida,” said Kelly Godsey, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tallahassee. “There are also a greater number of thunderstorms per year in Florida than anywhere else in the country.” Godsey urged people who see a storm approaching take cover in a sturdy shelter even before you hear thunder. Cars only offer protection if they have a hard top on them, he said. Those with a soft top – like the canvas-covered Humvee – offer no protection. “The most dangerous strikes with lightning are the first couple and the last couple of strikes,” he said, adding that people typically stay inside during the more intense part of the storm. In 2006, six Army Rangers trainees were struck by lightning at Camp James Rudder. The trainees were lying on the ground when lightning struck a nearby tree. They were not seriously injured. In 1996, a Hurlburt Field airman was killed by lightning while working on the flight line. Two others were injured in that incident.
02/22/2010 08:00 AM Injured	1 of 4 airmen	0.0	M	Eglin Reservation Fl USA		getting into humvee		In a Car or Vehicle,Military,Outside
1 P.M. UPDATE: One airman hospitalized, three released after lightning strike Comments 0 \| Recommend 0 February 22, 2010 9:42 AM Wendy Victora Daily News EGLIN RESERVATION -- Four Hurlburt Field airmen were struck by lightning Monday morning, while conducting vehicle navigation drills in the woods just north of Niceville. The instructor and three students were with Detachment 3 of the 342nd Training Squadron, according to Jeremy Webster with the First Special Operations Wing public affairs. The members of the Tactical Air Control Party were getting into their canvas-topped Humvees during an 8 a.m. thunderstorm when the accident happened, according to a Hurlburt Field press release. The instructor, Staff Sgt. John T. Dean, was directly struck by lightning. He was admitted to Fort Walton Beach Medical Center, where he was listed in good condition the release said. The other three were near him when he ws struck. The three students, Senior Airman Michael L. Fox, Airman First Class Ryan F. Cleaver and Airman Basic Duriel I. Harris were checked out at the hospital before being released for duty. Emergency officials from Niceville Fire Department and Eglin Air Force Base removed the victims from the woods near Anderson Pond. “All four of them had signs of a lightning strike, but two of them were worse than the others,” said Niceville Fire Department Chief Tommy Mayville. “There weren't any actual exit wounds but there were markings on them where the lightning went in and came out.” He said all four were conscious when rescue crews arrived on the scene. The airmen had left early Monday morning for the exercise, which involved spending five days in the field, Webster said. They were originally going to do a navigation exercise on foot, but the curriculum was modified due to the inclement weather. Instead, the group was doing vehicle navigation. The team included a medical personnel member. “Though training is paramount, our people and our safety are our top priority,” Col. Gregory J. Lengyel, 1st Special Operations Wing Commander was quoted as saying in the press release. “We are proud of our safety record and will continue to ensure we practice stringent safety measures to minimize incidents like this.” The incident is under investigation by a board of officers, according to the release. The storm passing over the Niceville area at that time involved only about five to 10 lightning strikes, according to Jack Cullen, meteorologist for the NWS in Mobile. “They must have been really unlucky,” Cullen said. “It wasn’t, by normal definition, a severe thunderstorm.” But, he added, all thunderstorms produce lightning, which makes them dangerous. “It’s just unfortunate that they happened to be outside at that time,” he said. Florida leads the country in the number of fatal lightning strikes. From 1959 to 2008, Florida has had 455 lightning fatalities, compared to the No. 2 state, Texas, with 207 in the same time period. Between 1999 and 2008, Florida had 70 deaths, compared to the second highest state, Colorado, with 28. “Part of that there are going to be more people outside in Florida,” said Kelly Godsey, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tallahassee. “There are also a greater number of thunderstorms per year in Florida than anywhere else in the country.” Godsey urged people who see a storm approaching take cover in a sturdy shelter even before you hear thunder. Cars only offer protection if they have a hard top on them, he said. Those with a soft top – like the canvas-covered Humvee – offer no protection. “The most dangerous strikes with lightning are the first couple and the last couple of strikes,” he said, adding that people typically stay inside during the more intense part of the storm. In 2006, six Army Rangers trainees were struck by lightning at Camp James Rudder. The trainees were lying on the ground when lightning struck a nearby tree. They were not seriously injured. To read about this incident, click here. In 1996, a Hurlburt Field airman was killed by lightning while working on the flight line. Two others were injured in that incident. To read about that incident, click here.
02/22/2010 04:00 PM Killed	5 killed 15 hurt	0.0	U	Rajasthan India
5 killed, 15 hurt by lightning in Rajasthan Advertisement Share Print E-mail Comment[ - ] Text [ + ]STAFF WRITER 0:13 HRS IST Jaipur, Feb 22 (PTI) Strong winds accompanied by rain and lightning claimed five lives and injured 15 others at two different places in the state, police said. Three teenagers, including a girl, were killed when lightning struck them when they were playing outside their house in Jorawar nagar village, about 80 km from here, they said. The deceased were identifed as Babulal (19), Lala Ram (8) and Pinki (15). In another incident, two persons were killed and 15 others, including four women, were injured when lightning struck them in Jodhpur region, police said. Saleem (14) was killed when lightning struck him in Hopardi village and Sharvan Singh (19) died and eight others were injured when they were hit by lightning in Shergarh. Seven persons were also injured when struck by lightning in Jawar. The injured were rushed to Mahatma Gandhi Hospital in Jodhpur, they said.
02/22/2010 12:00 PM Killed	3 killed	0.0	U	Jaipur India
JAIPUR: Lightning played havoc at several places in the state, killing three persons in Sikar and injuring many others in Dausa, Baran and Nagaur on Monday night. Around 13 cattles were also burnt to death in Kuchaman in Nagaur after fire broke out due to lightning. According to sources, three persons were killed and two others sustained burn injuries in Gorawar Nagar and Haspur in Sikar district as lightning struct them after a sudden change in weather. The deaths were reported in Sri Madhopur area. The injured were rushed to hospital where they are undergoing treatment. The district collector has announced compensation for the kin of deceased persons. In Baran, an electrician sustained burn injuries after he came in contact with a live wire while he was repairing the fault. The cable wire broke due to bad weather and the victim was referred to hospital in Kota. Fire broke out in Jiliya village of Kuchaman due to lightning and 13 cattle, resting in a shelter, were killed. Fire brigade rushed to the spot and controlled the fire. Similarly, fire broke out in Nangal area of Dausa district after an electricity cable broke due to high speed wind and fire was controlled after tiring effort. According to the regional Met office, Bikaner and Kota reported 3mm of rain while Ajmer reported 2mm of rain by 5.30 in the evening. Thundershowers occurred in Jaipur and Sriganganagar in the night. The weather office forecasts light rain or thundershowers at isolated places on Tuesday as well. The change in weather conditions is attributed to the impact of western disturbance from Jammu and Kashmir. In Jaipur, the maximum temperature rose to 32 degree Celsius, a departure of five degree Celsius during the day while the minimum temperature rose to 15.4 degree Celsius, a high of three degree Celsius over the previous day.
02/19/2010 09:00 PM Killed	3 in family	0.0	U	KwaZulu-Natal South Africa		in a rondavel		Indirect,Indoors
Man haunted by storm tragedy February 19 2010 at 01:49PM Get IOL on your mobile at m.iol.co.za By Slindile Maluleka Grief-stricken and sickly, Jonathan Mkhize of Mid Illovo, will never be able to erase the memory of the tragic final moment before three of his loved ones were struck by lightning. Mkhize, 54, his wife Jabu, 50, his daughter Buyisiwe, 19, and his grandson Mpilwenhle, 2, had gathered in the same rondavel - used as a bedroom - during Tuesday night's storm that caused havoc in many areas of KwaZulu-Natal. As they sat quietly, waiting for the storm to calm, Mkhize said he had heard a thunderous bang followed by a piercing scream. Soon afterwards, silence settled. Mkhize looked around the rondavel and noticed that Buyisiwe was hanging faced down on the side of the bed. Continues Below ↓ "I called her name out, but there was no response. I called her again; there was just silence in the room. I got up and walked to Jabu (his wife). I shook her and she did not respond. By now, tears welled up in my eyes because I realised they were dead. "I then turned to my grandson and he too, was dead. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I let everything out," he said wiping his eyes. The rondavel roof caught fire and reality hit Mkhize. Rushing before the fire got worse, he pulled the bodies out, one by one and his six other children, together with neighbours and other relatives, managed to get the furniture out before it was ravaged by the fire. The ambulance arrived and paramedics confirmed that the three were dead. A few days before the incident, Mkhize said he had a feeling that something was going to happen but he had not expected such a major tragedy. "Every night, I dreamt of meat and when I asked one of my neighbours what it meant, I was told it meant someone I know was going to die. It turned out to be so tragic and I will never forget this incident," said a heartbroken Mkhize. He suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes and is on tuberculosis treatment. His wife Jabu's disability grant was the family's only source of income. According to a report released by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, storms and other disasters since January will cost the province about R40-million. Replacing destroyed houses will cost about R9m, while partially damaged houses will cost about R6m. Repairs at schools will cost about R4,1m and food for affected communities will cost R1,5m. Infrastructure repairs are expected to cost about R4m and bridges in Nkandla will require about R7m to be upgraded. Damage assessments have not been concluded, so the amount may increase. Major storm-related incidents have been experienced in Amajuba, uMzinyathi, uMgungudlovu, Zululand and uGu District municipalities. Since January storms have destroyed 164 houses and damaged 753 houses.
02/19/2010 12:00 PM Killed	woman	25.0	F	Ucuma Huambo Angola		doing domestic work in her home		Indoors
2/19/10 6:27 PM Angola/Huambo Woman killed by lightning Ucuma– A 25 year old young lady was killed thursday by a lightning in the outskirts of Ucuma, 60 miles west of the central highland city of Huambo. According to eyewitnesses the lady died while doing domestic work in her home, under heavy rain with thunders. She is the third lightning victim in the region, following the death of two kids in january.
02/16/2010 02:00 PM Injured	woman	30.0	F	Glasshouse Mountains Queensland
Woman struck by lightning in storm Sarah Crawford and Mark Furler \| 16th February 2010 Day turns to night at 3pm along Wises Road, Maroochydore. Nicholas Falconer Advertising feature Clean up before summer storms hit WITH storms and flooding causing losses of over 400 million dollars a year, it will pay to be prepared for storms this season. Early preparation may be the key. A GLASSHOUSE Mountains woman was stuck by lightning this afternoon as severe storms ripped through the Sunshine Coast. The woman, 30, went to Glasshouse Family Practice complaining that she had been struck by lightening at her home around 2pm. Queensland Ambulance Service was called to the general practice and she was transported to Caboolture Hospital in a stable condition. Around 4pm a spokeswoman for Queensland Health said medical staff was still assessing her for injuries. The Coast copped a pelting this afternoon with places like Maroochydore and Sippy Downs recording about 40mm of rain in the hour to 4.30pm. Maleny had 53mm in the past seven hours, while Beerburrum had 55mm in the same period. Mountain Creek had 32mm of rain in the hour until 4.30pm, while Palmwoods had 20mm. Maroochydore had 56 in seven hours - 41 of which were in the hour up until 4.30pm. Energex said that since 11am, around 70,000 homes and businesses have lost power across South East Queensland due to the severe weather. The majority of customers had their supply restored within two hours with around 6500 homes and businesses without supply at 2.30pm. Worst affected areas have been around Moreton Bay Region, Brisbane City, Logan City and Beenleigh. Continued lightning strikes and access to flood-affected areas were hindering the remaining restoration efforts with crews waiting for water levels to recede before repairs can be undertaken. More than 2000 lightning strikes were recorded on the GPATs system between 11am and 2.30pm. ENERGEX has urged people to remain aware of any floodwaters and their relative location to dangerous live electricity.
02/16/2010 09:00 PM Injured	man	0.0	M	Newlands East South Africa		standing in doorway		Indirect,Indoors
Man standing in doorway hit by lightning February 17 2010 at 09:14AM Get IOL on your mobile at m.iol.co.za A Newlands East man is in a serious but stable condition in the eThekwini Hospital after he was struck by lighting on Tuesday night, according to paramedics. It is alleged that the man was standing in the doorway of his home watching the electrical storm display when lightning struck his house. The man was electrocuted and Netcare911 Paramedics were called to the scene. Advanced Life Support Paramedic Garrith Jamieson and his team arrived at the scene and managed to stabilise him at his home before he was transported by ambulance to hospital.
02/14/2010 04:00 PM unknown	1,321 people	0.0	U	Brazil		global warming increasing lightning?		Education,Science
Global Warming Could Lead to More Lightning Deaths by Stephen Messenger, Porto Alegre, Brazil on 02.14.10 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY BUZZ UP! In the last ten years, Brazil has been the target of an estimated 57 million lightning strikes--the most in the world. This astonishing natural record is not without a human toll, however. During that same period, 1,321 people have been fallen victim to lightning in Brazil alone, and scientists fear that incidents will only increase in the coming years. As if the long term threats of climate change were not enough to arouse concern, new research reveals that rising temperatures may increase the frequency of the sometimes fatal lightning strikes. Rising Temps May be More Lightning According to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE), global warming may dramatically increase the occurrence of lightning. A recently released hypothesis postulates that each degree of increase in global mean temperature will result in a 10 to 20 percent increase in the amount of lightning. Casualties as a result of lightning were not the primary focus of research, but rather the fires that often result from the strikes. Osmar Pinto explains in a report from Globo: At the meeting, it was hypothesized that the rays would increase the greenhouse effect by causing more forest fires, which in turn release more carbon dioxide, fueling a continuous cycle. In order to test the theory that climate change may contribute to more occurrences of lightening, INPE will be working in conjunction with NASA and other US agencies. Or Are Sun-Spots Causing More Strikes? While the climate change phenomena is of primary focus to researchers participating this study, the behavior of the sun will also be analyzed as a possible culprit for the increase in lightning strikes. According to Pinto, sun-spots may play a role in the creation of thunderstorms that not yet well understood. [Sun spots] can facilitate the formation of ice in the clouds and the rays only occur when there is ice inside the clouds. Scientists intend to closely follow the next increase of sun-spots in 2012. A Symptom of Something Bigger? While it is still unclear exactly what may be leading to the increase in the number of lightning strikes, researchers plan on continuing to try to better understand the phenomena which may be symptomatic of a greater shift in climate behavior. After all, even with an increase in strikes, the chances of being hit by lightning may be slim, but the consequences of climate change, yet to be fully understood, may effect us all. More on Lightning1321
02/12/2010 12:00 PM Killed	5 killed 1 injured	0.0	U	Kampuang Caniago village Agam West Sumatra		in a hut seeking shelter from storm
Lightning kills five in West Sumatra The Jakarta Post , Jakarta \| Sun, 02/14/2010 12:01 PM \| National Lightning has killed five people and seriously injured another as it struck a hut near a rice field in Kampuang Caniago village in the West Sumatra regency of Agam, Antara news agency reported.The survivor, Nofi Alizar, 12, is in a critical condition at M. Jamil Hospital due to severe burns in his back following the accident on Friday.Nofi’s uncle, Arnizur, said on Saturday that Darniati, 43, Zarnita, 45, Mardianis, 45, Evi, 35, and Asnilawati, 42, were already dead when police and neighbors arrived for a help. All the victims had been seeking shelter from rainstorm when a bolt of lightning struck.Arnizur said Nofi, despite his injury, had run back home to inform the accident.“Unfortunately, we could not save the lives of the victims,” Arnizur said, adding that Nofi’s parents were among the deaths. Lightning has killed five people and seriously injured another as it struck a hut near a rice field in Kampuang Caniago village in the West Sumatra regency of Agam, Antara news agency reported. The survivor, Nofi Alizar, 12, is in a critical condition at M. Jamil Hospital due to severe burns in his back following the accident on Friday. Nofi’s uncle, Arnizur, said on Saturday that Darniati, 43, Zarnita, 45, Mardianis, 45, Evi, 35, and Asnilawati, 42, were already dead when police and neighbors arrived for a help. All the victims had been seeking shelter from rainstorm when a bolt of lightning struck. Arnizur said Nofi, despite his injury, had run back home to inform the accident. “Unfortunately, we could not save the lives of the victims,” Arnizur said, adding that Nofi’s parents were among the deaths.
02/08/2010 01:00 PM Killed	2 teens	0.0	U	Swaziland		in a field		Outside
Two teen Zionists killed by lightning 08 February, 2010 10:00:00 By Fanyana Mabuza Font size: Two Sigangeni teenagers died when they were both struck by lightning after conducting a prayer in the area’s mountains on Saturday. Neighbours Mongi Dlamini and Clement Zulu both 18, were caught in a thunderstorm that began on midday and an hour later had subsided. The teenagers were accompanied by Mongi’s father Dan Dlamini, who survived the ordeal after he stayed behind to tie his shoes as the boys ran for home. He found both bodies strewn in an open field after a strong lightning bolt had struck, electrocuting his hands in the process. Mongi’s mother, Gladys, said her husband first noticed something was wrong when he saw the plastic bag the boys were carrying - lying next to the path. Upon closer inspection, he saw the bodies of the two a distance from the plastic bag. He realised that both were dead. “He then called us here at home and related the sad news. We quickly organised transport and rushed to the mountain, only to be confronted by our worst fears, and by then, they were stone cold. We called the police who came collected the bodies to the mortuary,” she said. Her story was corroborated by Mongi’s grandmother, Lucy Dlamini, who said the boys had gone up the mountain as part of their fasting schedule. mountain “They had been on a fast for the past few days and their going to the mountain was part of that process. We always go to the mountain to pray, and this is the first time that we are confronted by this,” she said. Both boys were attending school at Sigangeni, with Mongi doing Grade One at the area’s primary school. Zulu was doing Form One. They were members of The Deep 5 Jericho Church in Zion which is situated a few metres from Mongi’s homestead. The grandmother stated that the freak storm took less than an hour at a time the boys and the father had left for the mountains. “When they left, all was fine and the weather was okay with the sun burning bright. But while they were away, the clouds gathered and the crackling sounds of distant lightning could be heard. A few minutes later all went dark with a strong gale forcing maize stalks to bend. “The gale was accompanied by a rumbling thunder and blinding lightning. “Probably they then decided to return back home when they were caught by the lightning bolt. All we heard was when their father called to inform us of the tragedy on his cellphone. We then organised a vehicle and rushed to the scene, where we were confronted by their bodies lying on the veld in grotesque positions,” she said. The Police Deputy Public Relations, superientdent Wendy Hleta, confirmed the tragedy. Add to: del.icio.us \| Digg
02/07/2010 04:05 PM Injured	Connor Gordon	14.0	M	Childers Australia		in a kayak	N/A	Boat,fishing,On Water,Outside,Thrown,Water
Childers boy struck by lightning 7th February 2010 A 14-year-old boy who was struck by lightning was rushed to Bundaberg Hospital with wounds in his wrists and back. About 4pm Queensland Ambulance Service paramedics were called to a property on Coach Road, Redridge, near Childers. A QAS spokesman said he was holding an oar when the lightning struck him. The boy was transported to the hospital in a stable condition. Glenis Green February 09, 2010 12:00am A TEENAGER has survived being struck by lightning which threw him 10m as he paddled in a dam on his family's property. Connor Gordon, 14, said yesterday he was feeling "pretty good" after the terrifying incident on Sunday. "But when it first happened I thought I was dead," he said from his family's farm at Redridge near Childers. The blast blew the metal paddle from Connor's hands, as well as splitting and setting fire to a fishing rod standing in the back of his kayak. While it paralysed his arms and caused momentary blindness, he suffered only minor burns. Connor said the drama unfolded just after 4pm when he joined family and friends at the dam to retrieve a boat which had come adrift. While there had been rumbles of thunder and light rain, no one had noticed any lightning. "I put a fishing rod in the back standing in the air and I'd only paddled about 100m . . . There was a big bang and I blacked out," he said. "My body straightened out. I was sort of conscious. I knew what was happening but I couldn't see. It threw me 10m off the kayak. "When I hit the water and woke up and opened my eyes I thought I had just fallen out of the kayak." The craft was metres away, still intact, but with the fishing rod blasted in half and on fire. Connor's father Kris jumped in and swam towards him while his mother Joanne paddled out in another kayak. "My arms were all straightened and purple and cold but my legs were OK," Connor said. He was kept in hospital overnight but was told there was no long-term damage. "I'm feeling more normal now," Connor said. "But I won't be going to school tomorrow." Mrs Gordon said she was just "very relieved" her son was all right. Teenager survives lightning shock Letea Cavander \| 9th February 2010 Connor Gordon got the shock of his life on Sunday afternoon when he was struck by lightning while fishing on his dam. Darryn Smith A COUPLE watched in horror as a lightning bolt flung their teenage son 10 metres into the air as he paddled a kayak on the family dam. When Connor Gordon, 14, woke up from his blackout on Sunday afternoon he was in the water, his fishing rod was on fire and he was not able to move his arms. “I thought I was going to drown,” Connor said. The Gordon family had gone down to their Redridge property dam, near Childers, to have some afternoon tea with family friends when Connor discovered a boat had floated away from its mooring. “I decided to go for a paddle in the kayak to look for it,” he said. He had a 1.8m-long fishing rod standing in a rod holder on the back of the kayak and was also holding an oar when he found the boat. “Just after I yelled, ‘Mum, Dad, I found it’, I heard a big bang and blacked out,” he said. “I hit the water, opened my eyes and could see perfectly.” The fishing rod was on fire and the kayak paddle was missing. Although he was able to move his legs, his arms were paralysed and straight as iron rods in front of him. As he struggled to move his arms, dad Kris ran into the water and began to swim towards his son, who was about 100 metres offshore. “I just dived in and started swimming towards him,” Kris said. Mum Joanne grabbed another kayak and began a desperate paddle towards the boy. They finally reached Connor, who had been able to start moving his arms slowly through the water. After the couple got him back to shore, they raced to meet the ambulance. Connor said his hands were tingling after the taking the hit, his hair was singed and he had superficial burn marks — coloured blue — on his wrists and lower back, which had disappeared by yesterday afternoon. He said his ears had stopped ringing by the time he got to the ambulance, but every time he closed his eyes to go to sleep on Sunday night he could hear the crack of the lightning as it hit him. “I just kept on having these flashbacks the whole night,” he said. “I kept hearing the banging sound.” Brandishing his fishing rod, now about 50cm long and frayed at the end after becoming the lightning’s conductor, Connor said he wanted to thank the paramedics and doctors who treated him at Bundaberg Hospital. Mr Gordon said Connor was not so worried about buying a lotto ticket after his lucky escape, but he did want a new fishing rod. “This is a definite warning to people,” Mr Gordon added. “If there are any storms around, get under shelter and always wear a life jacket when on the water.”
02/02/2010 12:00 PM unknown	news story	0.0	U	Raleigh NC USA		bad safety info		Bad Safety info
WRAL's WeatherCenter meteorologists take you behind the weather headlines, answer questions and look to the sky to add insight and explanation for conditions in the Carolinas. Related Items Related Links Severe Weather Week Sign up for WeatherCall Send and view weather photos Subscribe to e-mail weather alerts WRAL WeatherCenter blog Forecasts, data, radar, cams in the WRAL WeatherCenter On The Web Follow WRAL WeatherCenter on Twitter Follow Mike Maze on Twitter Twitter: Follow Nate Johnson, executive producer in the WRAL WeatherCenter Site Search Lightning: The underrated killer By Elizabeth Gardner Posted: Today at 6:11 a.m. One of my favorite parts of the job of meteorologist is talking to students. When I go on school visits, I usually stress ways to stay safe during severe weather. I often start my talk by asking the students what they think is the most deadly kind of weather in the U.S. The number one answer I get is tornadoes, followed by hurricanes and then winter storms. Rarely do I hear flooding and lightning. However, they are the number one and two weather related killers. We’re fortunate in N.C. to have few tornadoes relative to Midwest states. But we are not immune to flooding or lightning. I’ll leave flooding for another day, but neither of these phenomenon tend to strike fear into most of us. We’re just around lightning so much in our area that we generally don’t pay it much attention. As a society, we’ve gone so far as to compare something unlikely to the chance of being struck by lightning. And, there’s the old adage that lightning never strikes the same place twice. It gives people a false sense of security because lightning is likely to strike the same high spot over and over. The bottom line is it’s inconvenient to protect yourself from lightning every time you are near it. Even with all I know about the dangers of lightning, it’s tempting to run from the car to the house in the middle of a storm. However, in North Carolina, that happens far too often, and our statistics reflect that. Here in the Tarheel state, lightning is an important weather hazard. Thunderstorms here generate an average of more than 500,000 cloud-to-ground flashes every year, and the National Weather Service in Raleigh estimates that central N.C. receives about 9-12 flashes per square mile each year. While definitive statistics on the number of people struck by lightning and injured in our state are hard to come by, the number of deaths is known to a better degree. During the 10 year span from 1998-2007, for example, North Carolina suffered 19 deaths due to lightning strikes, for an average of almost 2 per year. Of course, it's variable, and 2003 was an especially bad year with 5 fatalities. The statistics here lead to a ranking of 5th in the nation when it comes to raw numbers (behind Florida, Texas, Colorado and Georgia). On the other hand, when you factor in population, we come in 16th in the country in yearly lightning deaths per million people. We enjoy being outside in N.C. We have a lot of farmers, golfers, fisherfolk and other outdoor enthusiasts, so our numbers are relatively high. The best rule of thumb to stay safe during lightning is when you can hear thunder, it’s time to get to a safe place. That is relatively easy. Inside a building or a car is a good place to be. If you can’t get to either, stay away from the tallest thing around such as a lone tree or powerpole. Crouch down in a low place, and stay there until the lightning passes. A couple of years ago, I heard a sad story. A high school soccer team was practicing during a thunderstorm. I can almost hear the coach now saying something like "We’ve got a big game tomorrow. We’ve got to get this last set of drills in before we quit.” The coach and a player were both struck by lightning and killed. It can happen to you. However, it’s fairly easy to stay safe in lighting if you have a little patience. One way to stay ahead of severe weather is with WRAL WeatherCall. For a nominal fee, WRAL WeatherCall will monitor your home, workplace, or child's school 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. If severe weather threatens, Greg Fishel will call you with information about the storm and how to stay safe. Learn more about WRAL WeatherCall and sign up today! Copyright 2010 by Capitol Broadcasting Company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
01/31/2010 12:00 PM Killed	6 killed 4 injured	0.0	U	Malawi				Church
Lightning kills 6 in Malawi church Feb 1, 2010 1:13 PM \| By AFP Lightning killed six people and injured four others when it struck a church in Malawi's southern district of Balaka over the weekend, police said. Photograph by: . "There were 40 members of a Baptist church choir who were preparing for a service on Sunday when lightning struck them and killed six people on the spot," police spokesman Titani Chadwala said. Lightning kills scores of Malawians during the rainy season here which starts from October to April.
01/31/2010 12:00 PM Killed	1 killed 2 injured	0.0	U	Millaniya		resting in a shed
Lightning kills one, injures two TUESDAY, 02 FEBRUARY 2010 00:00 By Kusal Chamath – Bandaragama One person died and two others were seriously injured when they were struck by lightning at Kannanthudawa in Millaniya on Sunday evening. They were clearing a land during the heavy rains experienced in the area. They were resting for a while in a nearby shed when lightning hit them. However, two others had a narrow escape. The injured were admitted to the Horana Base Hospital and one of them transferred to the National Hospital in a critical condition. The deceased Kalubovilage Sunil Ranjith (39) was a resident of Warawatta, Raigama , Bandaragama
01/30/2010 12:00 PM unknown	Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes	0.0	U	USA				Education,Science
Firefly To Study Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes Posted on: Saturday, 30 January 2010, 07:30 CST High-energy bursts of gamma rays typically occur far out in space, perhaps near black holes or other high-energy cosmic phenomena. So imagine scientists' surprise in the mid-1990s when they found these powerful gamma ray flashes happening right here on Earth, in the skies overhead. They're called Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes, or TGFs, and very little is known about them. They seem to have a connection with lightning, but TGFs themselves are something entirely different. "In fact," says Doug Rowland of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, "before the 1990s nobody knew they even existed. And yet they're the most potent natural particle accelerators on Earth." Individual particles in a TGF acquire a huge amount of energy, sometimes in excess of 20 mega-electron volts (MeV). In contrast, the colorful auroras that light up the skies at high latitudes are powered by particles with less than one thousandth as much energy. What causes these high-energy flashes? Do they help trigger lightning--or does lightning trigger them? Could they be responsible for some of the high-energy particles in the Van Allen radiation belts, which can damage satellites? To investigate, Rowland and his colleagues at GSFC, Siena College, Universities Space Research Association, and the Hawk Institute for Space Sciences are planning to launch a tiny, football-sized satellite called Firefly in 2010 or 2011. Because of its small size, Firefly will cost less than $1 million — about 100 times cheaper than what satellite missions normally cost. Part of the cost savings comes from launching Firefly under the National Science Foundation's CubeSat program, which launches small satellites as "stowaways" aboard rockets carrying larger satellites into space, rather than requiring dedicated rocket launches. If successful, Firefly will return the first simultaneous measurements of TGFs and lightning. Most of what's known about TGFs to date has been learned from missions meant to observe gamma rays coming from deep space, such as NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, which discovered TGFs in 1994. As it stared out into space, Compton caught fleeting glimpses of gamma rays out of the corner of its eye, so to speak. The powerful flashes were coming--surprise!--from Earth's atmosphere. Subsequent data from Compton and other space telescopes have provided a tantalizingly incomplete picture of how TGFs occur: In the skies above a thunderstorm, powerful electric fields generated by the storm stretch upward for many miles into the upper atmosphere. These electric fields accelerate free electrons, whisking them to speeds approaching the speed of light. When these ultra-high speed electrons collide with molecules in the air, the collisions release high-energy gamma rays as well as more electrons, setting up a cascade of collisions and perhaps more TGFs. To the eye, a TGF probably wouldn't look like much. Unlike lightning, most of a TGF's energy is released as invisible gamma rays, not visible light. They don't produce colorful bursts of light like sprites and other lightning-related phenomena. Nevertheless, these unseen eruptions could help explain why brilliant lightning strikes occur. A longstanding mystery about lightning is how a strike gets started. Scientists know that the turbulence inside a thundercloud separates electric charge, building up enormous voltages. But the voltage needed to ionize air and generate a spark is about 10 times greater than the voltage typically found inside storm clouds. "We know how the clouds charge up," Rowland says, "we just don't know how they discharge. That is the mystery." TGFs could provide that spark. By generating a quick burst of electron flow, TGFs might help lightning strikes get started, Rowland suggests. "Perhaps this phenomenon is why we have lightning," he says. If so, there ought to be many more TGFs each day than currently known. Observations by Compton and other space telescopes indicate that there may be fewer than 100 TGFs worldwide each day. Lightning strikes millions of times per day worldwide. That's quite a gap. Then again, Compton and other space telescopes before Firefly weren't actually looking for TGFs. So perhaps it's not surprising that they didn't find many. Firefly will specifically look for gamma ray flashes coming from the atmosphere, not space, conducting the first focused survey of TGF activity. Firefly's sensors will even be able to detect flashes that are mostly obscured by the intervening air, which is a strong absorber of gamma rays (a fact that protects people on the ground from the energy in these flashes). Firefly's survey will give scientists much better estimates of the number of TGFs worldwide and help determine if the link to lightning is real. By Patrick Barry, Science @ NASA
01/29/2010 12:00 PM unknown	new form of lightning	0.0	U	USA				Education,Science
Scientists Discover a New Form of Lightning by David DeFranza on 01.29.10 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY BUZZ UP! Image credit: Ethan Hein/Flickr The lightning observed during the eruption of Mt. Redoubt in 2009, researchers have determined, is an entirely new variety. Using radio antennas, scientists noticed that the bolts were shorter, lasting only a few milliseconds, and much more frequent than typical lightning. Love Lightning? Thunderstorms: The Dark and Stormy Drama (Slideshow) Stephen McNutt, a volcano seismologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks's Geophysical Institute, became interested in lightning during the 1992 Mt. Spurr eruption. While studying the seismic data from that event, he noticed strange spikes in the records. He explains that: The seismometers were actually picking up lightning strikes...I knew that I had to reach out to the physicists studying lightning. He teamed up with Ronald Thomas, a physicist and electrical engineer, and Sonja Behnke, a graduate student in atmospheric science. The group formulated a research plan and started waiting for the next eruption. The Mount Redoubt Eruption Image credit: Wikimedia Commons Mt. Redoubt, a 10,197 foot high volcano in Alaska's Aleutian Range, has been active for a millennia. In the twentieth century alone it erupted four times—most notably in 1989 during an event that spread ash nearly 8,000 square miles. Watch: The Volcanoes of a Raging Planet (Video) On January 30, 2009, seismologists observed an increase in activity surrounding the volcano and issued a warning that eruption was imminent. McNutt and his team mobilized but it wasn't until March 22 that Mt. Redoubt finally erupted. Though the impact fell short of history's greatest eruptions, it still managed to send ash as high as 65,000 feet into the air. Certainly, the event was significant enough to provide McNutt and his team with data. Measuring Volcanic Lightning To measure the lightning, researchers deployed four Lightning Mapping Arrays prior to the eruption. Behnke explained that the arrays are "basically an old TV antenna set to pick up channel 3— the same frequency that lightning radiates from." They set the arrays 50 miles away from the volcano, on the other side of Cook Inlet. Thomas explained that they couldn't "put the LMAs on the volcano because the volcano is basically in a wilderness area and the stations need power and internet to function." Watch: Will Global Warming Change the Weather? (Video) Even from 50 miles away the arrays were able to capture an astonishing amount of data. During the eruption, Thomas commented: We're getting all the data we hoped to get and a lot more...absolutely, the quality and quantity of the data will allow us to better understand the electrical charge structure inside a volcanic plume. Mt. Redoubt's major eruptions lasted more than a week. After that, though the volcano continues to be active even today, it was time to return to the lab to analyze the data. Understanding Dry Lightning Image credit: Wikimedia Commons Typically, lightning occurs when falling ice or rain polarizes particles in clouds. Positively and negatively charged particles separate and collect in groups of similar charge. A lightning bolt occurs when these charges are equalized. Dry lightning is caused by the save convective forces created by a thunderstorm, without the need of precipitation and cumulonimbus clouds. Usually, dry lightning is observed during wildfires but it can occur anytime cold air moves over super-heated ground, like that created by a volcano. Volcanic lightning, then, is a form of dry lightning. But what makes the lightning observed by McNutt and his team unique? Defining a New Type of Lightning The research team believes the lightning that occurred during the Mt. Redoubt eruption can be classified as a new type because of the frequency of the bolts and their duration. Thomas commented that "we saw lots of lightning—20 to 30 minutes of lighting...even more lightning than we would typically see during a major thunderstorm." McNutt explained: At the moment the eruption started, there were these sparks of lightning coming from the vent of Redoubt that only lasted 1 to 2 milliseconds. He then added that "this was a different kind of lighting that we have never seen before." What this research means for the future of volcanology and meteorology is not yet clear but there is one thing that everyone, scientists and residents alike, agree on: The Mt. Redoubt eruption was "the most spectacular lightning display that they have ever seen." Love Lightning? Thunderstorms: The Dark and Stormy Drama (Slideshow) Read more about volcanoes: Krakatoa it Ain't: Mt Redoubt Enviro Effect Likely Small Mayon Volcano May Cause Climate Cooling Could Volcanic Eruptions Slow Climate Change? Alaskan Volcanoes to be Surveyed, Tapped for Geothermal Pow
01/27/2010 07:30 PM Injured	man	37.0	M	Sydney Australia		washing up near a window		Indirect,Indoors
Man struck by lightning in Sydney's west January 28, 2010 Ads by Google Highway Safety Program Reduce injuries and fatalities foryour highway workforce. www.agc.org/bookstore AAP A man has been struck by lightning in Sydney's outer west and two people have been hospitalised as thunderstorms sweep across NSW. The Ambulance Service of NSW said a 37-year-old man was hit by lightning while doing the washing up near a window at a YMCA camp in Yarramundi at about 7.30pm (AEDT) on Thursday. Paramedics were treating the man, who was suffering neck and shoulder pain, and planned to take him to hospital. Emergency services were also called to a house on Macquarie Road, in Springwood, in the NSW Blue Mountains, after it was struck by lightning at about 5pm. "It's come through the window, it hit the curtains and ignited them," a firefighter at the scene told media at the scene. Two people, including a man suffering smoke inhalation, were taken to Blue Mountains Hospital. A house on East View Avenue in nearby Leura also caught fire after it was hit by lightning, but no one was injured. The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) issued a severe thunderstorm warning at 7.30pm, predicting large hailstones, heavy rainfall, flash flooding and damaging winds. Areas which may be affected late on Thursday include Grafton, Taree, Armidale, Tamworth, Narrabri and Walgett. The NSW State Emergency Service (SES) said people in those areas should move their cars under cover and away from trees, secure loose items and stay indoors away from windows, and keep children and pets indoors. The BoM said thunderstorms had moved through Sydney, Illawarra, Central West Slopes and Lower Western Districts by early Thursday night and the warning was no longer in force for those areas. An SES spokesman said there had been 33 requests for assistance across the state, including 12 in the Blue Mountains. "(The storm) looked pretty spectacular on the radar ... but as luck had it, it pretty well passed over mostly unpopulated areas," the spokesman told AAP. "There hasn't been a lot of hail or anything in them, but there's been some pretty heavy rain."
01/26/2010 02:00 PM Killed	2 soldiers	0.0	M	Sir Seretse Khama Barracks Botswana		walking around one of the units		Military,Outside
Two soldiers struck by lightning Written by VICTOR BAATWENG FRIDAY, 29 JANUARY 2010 16:31 Two members of the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) were this week struck by lightning. A statement from the Botswana Defence Force’s public Affairs Office read, “Two members of the Botswana Defence Force died after they were struck by lightning on Tuesday, 26 January 2010 at Sir Seretse Khama Barracks in Mogoditshane at around 2 pm.” BDF Public Affairs Officer lieutenant Monty Malomo said the names of the deceased have not yet been released pending notification of their next of kin. This was also confirmed by BDF’s Director of Protocol and Public Affairs, Colonel Mogorosi Baatweng who said the incident occurred at around 2 p.m. while the deceased and their co-workers were walking around one of the army units. “However the other soldiers were not injured but are reported to be in a state of confusion.”
01/25/2010 12:00 PM Killed	man	0.0	M	Okhukho Nongoma KwaZulu-Natal
Lightning strike kills KZN man 2010-01-25 21:37 Print article Email article Durban - A man died when he was struck by lightning in Okhukho near Nongoma in northern KwaZulu-Natal during floods, the department of local government and traditional affairs said on Monday. "One person died after being struck by lightning in Okhukho yesterday [Sunday]. We have sent a team to evaluate the damage that has occurred in the area," said local government and traditional affairs MEC Nomusa Dube’s spokesperson Lennox Mabaso. Mabaso said there was a storm in Vryheid and Olundi. The department was waiting for a report on the damage. - SAPA
01/25/2010 12:00 PM Killed	airplane	0.0	U	Lebanon				Airplane
Rare cause of a jet crash Wednesday, January 27, 2010 THE RECORD 0 Comments A plane that crashed off Lebanon on Monday morning probably flew through a severe thunderstorm, and a bolt of lightning may have struck directly in line with the plane's flight path, according to data compiled by accuweather.com. Early reports have not determined whether the storm caused the Ethiopian Airlines flight to crash with 90 passengers on board. If so, it would be an extremely unusual event. Today's commercial airlines are equipped with such sophisticated lightning protection systems that the last time lightning was confirmed as the direct cause of a commercial plane crash in the United States was in 1967, when it caused a fuel tank to explode. Indeed, the average commercial airliner is struck by lightning more than once every year. Passengers may see a flash and hear a loud noise when that happens, but that's usually all that happens, according to Edward J. Rupke, senior engineer at Lightning Technologies Inc., in Pittsfield, Mass., who wrote about the phenomenon for Scientific American magazine in 2006. When lightning strikes a plane, it attaches itself to an extremity, such as the nose or wingtip, and the airplane flies through the flash, Rupke wrote. The electrical current then travels through the aircraft's specially designed skin. The current exits from another extremity, such as the tail. Pilots sometimes report flickering lights and interference with their instruments, but that only lasts a moment before the plane continues, safely, on its way. Sources: accuweather.com, Scientific American — Stephanie Akin What are these? Reader Comments (0) There are no current comments at this time. Be the first to post one! Share your view: You must be logged in to comment MORE FROM NORTHJERSEY.COM TRANSPORTATION Small plane lands on turnpike near Cherry Hill NORTHJERSEY.COM Aircraft makes emergency landing on NJ Turnpike NORTHJERSEY.COM Toyota tells dealers parts on way to fix pedals NORTHJERSEY.COM More than just a ride SUBURBAN TRENDS Rocky Road SUBURBAN TRENDS Ads from Google Go To Your Town's Home Page SEE THE FULL TOWN LIST LATEST TOWN NEWS NFD gets grant for protective gear NUTLEY Today, Feb. 1 in Ridgewood RIDGEWOOD Cathryn Chapman wins 2010 'Idol' PEQUANNOCK (INCLUDING POMPTON PLAINS) Window of boro Indian returned to school WANAQUE (INCLUDING HASKELL) Lakeland grad returns home to shoot film WAYNE Go To Your High School's Home Page SEE THE FULL SCHOOL LIST MOST READMOST COMMENTEDMOST E-MAILED East Rutherford principal criticized in text messaging case in Crime & Courts Fairfield police officer remains in critical condition as manhunt launched in Essex N.J. bracing for flow of Haitian refugees in State Sales brisk for Powerball tickets in N.J. in State Bergen Co. man lost more than money to gambling in Sports Police looking for two who robbed Hackensack bank - then left money in parking lot in Crime & Courts N.J. Gov. Christie's transition team has harsh words about state's environmental department in Business Small plane lands on turnpike near Cherry Hill in Transportation Saddle Brook man fights rare disease featured in the film "Extraordinary Measures" in Health & Health Care Northjersey.com's guide to businesses and services Find: Enter name or type of business Near: Enter city & state, or ZIP Popular Searches
01/23/2010 04:00 PM Injured	flight attendant	0.0	U	Burbank Ca USA		in an airplane		Airplane
Storms Cancel More than 400 Flights, Southwest Airlines Hit Hard By Barbara E. Hernandez \| Jan 21, 2010 SharePrintRecommend0 Winter storms brought heavy rain, snow and lightning to Arizona and California, canceling more than 400 flights at Phoenix Sky Harbor International, Los Angeles International and John Wayne (Orange County) airports. At John Wayne, all 57 Southwest Airlines flights were scrapped. US Airways canceled 26 flights in Phoenix and United also “curtailed flights,” but details weren’t available. About 100 people were stranded at the John Wayne airport, according to the Los Angeles Times, and looking for alternative ways to get to their destinations, including flights to other airports or renting cars. Too bad that Interstate 5, California’s main north-to-south thoroughfare was closed due to snow and icy conditions just north of Los Angeles. (Similarly Interstate 40, which connects Arizona to Southern California was also closed due to the storm.) Flights in San Diego, Ontario and Burbank also had cancellations and problems. At Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, two Southwest planes were struck by lightning. One flight attendant complained of pain in her arm and was taken by ambulance to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center. While other airlines were mentioned, Southwest Airlines was named multiple times in the stories, with a spokeswoman promising free rebooking to those stranded in airports. However, Southwest didn’t volunteer overnight accommodations for those passengers at Sky Harbor who could be stranded until Friday morning, at least not to the writers and reporters to the stories. When weather turns bad and leads to massive flight cancellations, airlines have to be able to guarantee their passengers’ safety and comfort even if it costs some cash.
01/10/2010 04:00 PM Killed	4	0.0	U	South Africa
OHANNESBURG — Four people were struck by lightning and killed in the Eastern Cape yesterday afternoon, police said. A six-year-old boy and his 26-year-old mother were struck by lightning in their rondavel in Qotha locality near eNgcobo, said Superintendent Mzukisi Fatyela. The hut’s roof caught fire, but Fatyela said lightning and not the fire led to their deaths. This brings the total of people killed by lightning in the same province on the same day to four. At Tina Falls near Qumbu, an18-year-old boy was struck by lightning while in an open field, Fatyela said. He died at the scene. Earlier in the day, at 2.30 pm, a 13-year-old boy was killed by lightning while returning home in the rain after visiting neighbours in the Nkwenkwana locality at eNgcobo, said Fatyela. Another boy is presumed dead after he was swept away by a river in Ngqeleni near Mthatha. The 16-year-old was attempting to cross the Ngqeleni River with a friend at the time, Fatyela said. The boy’s friend crossed safely. Police divers were still looking for the body.
01/10/2010 12:00 PM Killed	1 person	0.0	U	Indonesia
Bad Weather Kills at Least 3 in Indonesia; Heavy Rain Set to Continue As floodwaters inundated thousands of houses around the country over the weekend, the weather agency issued a warning on Sunday against continuing downpours today. In its alert, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) forecast strong winds, lightning storms and torrential rain in Sumatra, Central and Southern Kalimantan, East Java, Greater Jakarta, Bali and Nusa Tenggara, most of Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua. Torrential rain over the weekend left several parts of the country under water. In East Java, storms submerged thousands of homes and left at as many as four people dead. “Pasuruan [East Java] is the worst-hit area. The flood inundated nearly 6,000 houses and three people died, while one is still missing,” Priyadi Kardono, the spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), told the Jakarta Globe on Sunday. Priyadi said two of the victims died after being swept away by floods and the other died after being struck by lightning. He said that BNPB team was still searching for the missing person. Rustam Pakaya, head of the H e alth Ministry’s Crisis Center, said the flood affected four districts in Pasuruan. He said at least 150 people had been evacuated to safer places such as mosques. Rustam said the local government had conducted some emergency measures, including establishing some open kitchens and distributing basic necessities to the victims’ houses. Rustam also said the ministry had sent a medical team to help the victims. He added that no serious medical problems had been reported yet. Priyadi said flooding also occurred in Telanaipura subdistrict in Jambi, South Sumatra. He said more than 300 houses were inundated by floodwater up to two meters deep, adding that the flood had caused dozens of families to evacuate to higher ground. In Pagaralam, South Sumatra, the heavy rain caused landslides in several parts of the district. Adj. Chief Comr. Abdul Soleh, head of the Pagaralam Police was quoted by Kompas.com as saying that the landslides had caused some traffic problems. Abdul said that as a result of the landslides, mud, huge rocks and trees were now proving a danger to motorists in several areas of the district. 1
01/10/2010 02:30 PM Killed	2 teens	0.0	M	Tina Falls South Africa		open field		Field,Outside
ightning kills two in Tina Falls 10 January 2010, 17:18 Related Articles Boy killed by lighting A second teenager has been struck and killed by lightning in the Eastern Cape on Sunday, police said. The 18 year-old boy was struck by lightning while in an open field in Tina Falls near Qumbu, said Superintendent Mzukisi Fatyela. He died at the scene. Earlier in the day, at 2.30pm, a 13-year-old boy was killed by lightning while returning home in the rain after visiting neighbours in the Nkwenkwana locality at eNgcobo, said Fatyela. Another boy is presumed dead after he was swept away by a river in Ngqeleni near Mthatha. The 16-year-old was attempting to cross the Ngqeleni River with a friend at the time, Fatyela said. The boy's friend crossed safely. Police divers were still looking for the body. - Sapa
01/08/2010 04:00 PM Injured	Fisherman	43.0	M	Palmerston boat ramp Australia		walking to car at boat ramp		Boat,Dock/Pier/Jetty,fishing,Near Water,Outside
Fisho struck by lightning REBEKAH CAVANAGH January 12th, 2010 A FISHERMAN is lucky to be alive after he was zapped by lightning at a Top End boat ramp. The man was walking to his car at the Palmerston boat ramp after a day's fishing when a bolt of lightning struck him, knocking him to the ground last week. He lost consciousness for several seconds before his friends ran to his aid. The man, from Howard Springs in Darwin's rural area, was taken to Royal Darwin Hospital where he needed stitches to his face after he suffered bad cuts from the impact when he hit the bitumen. The Northern Territory News contacted him yesterday but he did not wish to speak about his ordeal. The strike comes just three weeks after two men were rushed to RDH after being struck by lightning just minutes apart in Lyons in the northern suburbs. Dirk Reinbrecht told the Northern Territory News from his hospital bed at the time how he was connecting the safety chain from a trailer to a ute when the trailer was struck by a bolt of lightning and he was thrown several metres through the air. A 22-year-old man - who declined to be interviewed or named - was also reportedly injured by lightning while working with electrical cabling not far away just moments later. Mr Reinbrecht, 43, said it was "some sort of miracle" that he wasn't killed. "I saw the light that threw me back from the car," he said. "But I'm alright. "I have never been hit by lightning before - I hope that was my first and last time."
01/08/2010 03:30 PM Injured	Shayna McPaul	15.0	F	Glenvale Australia		on laptop plugged in indoors		Computer / Video Game,Indirect,Indoors
Lightning bolt shocks girl, 15 Stuart Cumming \| 12th January 2010 Glenvale teenager Shayna McPaul was thrown across a room when lightning struck near her home while she was using a laptop computer. Kevin Farmer GLENVALE’S Shayna McPaul received the biggest shock of her life when a lightning bolt struck near her home. Miss McPaul, 15, was tossed a metre backwards across the lounge room floor when electricity surged through her laptop computer which was plugged into a power point. The lightning struck across the road from her Blue Gum Drive home during a storm about 3.30 on Friday afternoon. It triggered the safety switch, but not before damaging a stove, a set-top box, another computer and five light fittings. “I got thrown back, then I stood up and just collapsed,” Miss McPaul said. Her brother Josh dialled triple zero on his mobile phone as mum Anne and dad Doug tended to Miss McPaul who was struggling to breathe. “I was at the door when it struck and I quickly bolted outside to see if anything was on fire because I didn’t realise Shayna had been hurt,” Mr McPaul said. “When I came back in, I was shocked to see her lying on the floor.” Ambulance crews stabilised Miss McPaul at her home then took her to Toowoomba Hospital where she was monitored until being released about 10pm. “They said I was very lucky,” Miss McPaul said. “It could have been so much worse if we didn’t have a safety switch.” Mr McPaul said they had installed the safety switch only three years ago. He said neighbours had all come outside after hearing the strike, but his house was the only one that seemed to have been affected. Despite being able to laugh it off now, Miss McPaul said it really brought home the importance of being vigilant during electrical storms. “I will never use any electrical goods during a storm again,” she said. It could have been so much worse if we didn’t have a safety switch.
01/06/2010 12:00 PM Killed	farmer	0.0	M	Bondowoso East Java Indonesian		working in paddy fields		Farming,Field,Outside
Tornadoes Kill 1 Man and Damage More Than 200 Houses Across Java An Indonesian farmer was killed after he was struck by lightning when a tornado wreaked havoc on his village of Bondowoso, East Java, on Tuesday evening. Tornadoes also hit other areas in East Java and West Java. A villager who saw the incident said the farmer, Burawi, was not aware of the approaching tornado because he was busy working in his paddy field. The tornado came with heavy rain and strong winds. Villagers said it struck for less than five minutes but more than 80 houses were damaged. A school also collapsed completely. Fortunately nobody was injured because the students had already gone home. In Pasuruan, a tornado damaged 53 houses in six villages on Tuesday. The tornado also caused tens of trees to fall down in the streets of the East Java town, triggering traffic delays for hours. In Bandung, West Java, 90 houses were damaged by a tornado. Siti Kartini, a resident in Landean Girang village, cried upon seeing her house turned to ruins. Siti and her husband are poor and she asked for the local government to help her rebuild the house because they did not have any money. The Metereology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency wrote on its Web site that heavy rains and strong winds in most areas of Indonesia were being caused by low pressure winds in the Timor Sea, southeast of North Nusa Tenggara and southwest of the Lampung Sea. Officials also closed Ketapang Harbor in Banyuwangi, East Java, and Gilimanuk Harbour in Bali for safety reasons on Tuesday evening due to low visability, strong winds and heavy rain.
01/01/2010 04:00 PM unknown	windmills	0.0	U	Ca USA		lightning damage take windmills offline		Science,Windmill
Windmills being dismantled? Tuesday, January 5, 2010 12:20 AM PST Why are the windmills along the Tecate Divide just off Interstate 8 in the Crestwood area being dismantled all of a sudden? This seems very sad in view of our energy needs. — Frequent Traveler, Calexico We haven’t been that way in a while, so we cannot say we’ve seen what the letter writer is speaking about. We called San Diego Gas & Electric to ask what officials there know. SDG&E buys electricity produced by the wind mills, which are operated by the Campo Indians and an outside company specializing in wind energy. SDG&E referred us to the tribe, and said someone with the tribe would be getting back to us sometime Monday but that did not happen before deadline. But we don’t think the wind mills are being dismantled at all. We imagine they are being repaired. We found a news story out of San Diego County saying lightning struck most of the 25 wind turbines during a freak electrical storm Dec. 7. At least two of the turbines were damaged severely. The whole system was offline when the lightning strikes occurred as wind before the storm measured 70 mph and the turbines are designed to shut down at 55 mph, according to the story. While the story said wind turbines are supposed to withstand 98 percent of lightning strikes, this is one of the 2 percent of cases where the damage was extensive. On Dec. 8 the story said the repairs would take a while. We’ll update this PROBE in the coming days because we do expect the tribe will get back to us. The giant wind mills are such a prevalent sight on the drive between here and San Diego, we think our readers would be interested.
12/31/2009 12:00 PM unknown	space weather	0.0	U	Israel				Education,Science
Israeli Researcher Making Waves in Space Weather by Abigail Klein Leichman Follow Israel news on and . (IsraelNN.com) Space weather, sun storms, lightning strikes – these are all in a day's work for Israeli researcher Colin Price. The serene landscapes that Prof. Colin Price paints for pleasure contrast starkly with the violent weather he studies for a living. Lightning strikes, not pastoral beaches, provide the backdrop for his groundbreaking research. Price, head of Tel Aviv University's Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science, tells ISRAEL21c that his interest in natural hazards – forest fires, volcanoes, floods – was sparked by his high school geology teacher in Johannesburg, South Africa. "I started out in both physics and geology and thought I'd go into oil exploration and get rich," he recalls with a laugh. "That didn't work out." When he began his master's degree at Tel Aviv University, there was no research project available on oil exploration. Price took on a project studying acid rain instead, and that led to a fascination with severe weather patterns. Making waves in space weather His research has made waves in "space weather," a new scientific field that focuses on the interaction between the sun and the Earth's environment. In addition, he coordinates the Flash Project, an alliance among five European countries that examines lightning patterns and their effect on climatic events including flash floods. Based in Israel, Price enjoys an advantage that American scientists don't share: "We have a link with the European Union in a research framework," he explains. "The Israeli government puts money in a ‘pot' and we can apply to tap into it for projects in collaboration with European scientists." Price, who not only paints, bikes and hikes but has also run two marathons, is keenly interested in a weather satellite to be launched in 2015. Data from the satellite on atmospheric conditions in Europe and Africa could help Price measure the effect of lightning on areas ranging from aviation to forest fires. Then, he could develop educational and practical products to keep individuals and industries from harm. For example, if an electric company had a tool to pinpoint in advance where lightning would strike, it could divert power to safe zones in the network and also fix damage more quickly afterward, thus saving millions of dollars in lost productivity due to blackouts. In the meantime, Price is collecting data along the Dead Sea Rift to see whether electromagnetic irregularities in the atmosphere can help predict coming earthquakes, and he is monitoring sun storms to study their impact on the Earth. Ruing the brain drain During semester breaks, Price presents papers and lectures in places like Hungary, Barcelona and Brussels, as well as Toronto, Montreal and New York. He bumps into plenty of Israeli expatriates on his North American travels. "The brain drain is a real problem," says Price ruefully. "There are more than 1,000 Israeli research scientists living in the US and Canada – many of whom would return if we had a research institute such as NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I have on my desk five or six CVs of people wanting to come back, but there's no place for them." Price himself was able to return to Tel Aviv in 1995, after several years in America, only because a slot opened when a professor in his department retired. It was not money that drew him – salaries are lower in Israel – but a strong sense of Zionism and a desire to raise his three daughters in the country to which he immigrated at age 20. "There are certain things you can't put a price on," he declares. The scientist's father volunteered as a physician in the nascent Israeli army during the 1948 War of Independence. He and his wife determined to move to Israel after Colin, their youngest child, finished high school in 1979. After one year at the University of Witwatersrand, Colin joined them and began studying geophysics at Tel Aviv University. In 1988, he and his attorney wife, Nurit, moved to New York with their firstborn, Avital. Price earned a doctorate in atmospheric sciences through Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. His research focused on global climate change and lightning activity. In 1993, he began a two-year post-doctorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where his daughter Leor was born. Maiyan, now an eighth-grader, arrived after the family's 1995 return. Reprinted by permission of Israel21c.
12/30/2009 12:00 PM Injured	4 children	18.0	U	Miadhu		playing outside in storm
Thunder and lightning strikes Haa Alif Dhidhdhoo and injures 4 children WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30TH, 2009 ARTICLE TOOLS Digg Facebook Stumbleupon Twitter Reddit Print Four children were injured in Haa Alifu Dhidhdhoo because of thunder and lightning strikes in the island. Three children are in the hospital for medical attention. Hospital also reports that one child’s situation is serious while another was released after treatment. Two of them were below the age of the 18 while the other two were 18 years old. At the time of the strike they were playing near a deserted house in heavy rain, thunder and lightning, Dhidhdhoo Police Station reports. The incident had also left some part of the island without electricity.
12/28/2009 03:30 PM Killed	man	69.0	M	Port Dickson Malaysia		on a golf course		Outside
Korean golfer dies after struck by lightning 2009/12/28 By Dharshini Balan PORT DICKSON: A Korean man died after he was struck by lightning while playing golf with his friends at the Port Dickson Golf Club, near here, today. In the 3.30pm incident, Yoon Doo Jae, 69, was at the golf course with four others when suddenly there was a heavy downpour. According to a police spokesman, Yoon was struck and collapsed immediately. He died on the spot. "His body was sent to Port Dickson Hospital for post mortem. "The family will be arriving from Korea tomorrow to claim his body," he said.
12/24/2009 12:00 PM Injured	3 people	0.0	U	Johannesburg South Africa
Johannesburg - While Mpumulanga hospitals welcomed 36 Christmas babies, they also had to cope with a rise in assault cases over Christmas Eve, the health department said on Friday . Departmental spokesperson Mpho Gabashane said between midnight and 07:00, 22 boys and 14 girls were born in the province. The stork delivered four babies apiece to Embhuleni and Tintswalo Hospital. The biggest baby born was a 3.7kg boy in Kwamhlanga. The youngest mother was 15-years-old and two 39-year-old women who gave birth in Standerton and Middelburg were the oldest. "All the babies were reported to be in good health." However, Gabashane said that hospitals in the province also had to cope with the darker side of Christmas Eve, with a spike in assault cases overnight. One hospital admitted seven stab wound victims, and another in Belfast treated three. Temba Hospital also attended to three stab wound victims. Also overnight, three people were admitted to hospital after being struck by lightning. On Friday morning they were in stable condition. - SAPA Read more on: crime \| festive season Email article Print article GET NEWS24 ON: Your mobile Your Facebook profile SHARE: Laaik.it Yahoo Google Digg del.icio.us Facebook Twitter Other Stories in South Africa... Toddler's mutilated body found The badly mutilated body of a 3-year-old toddler has been found in the Free State, just hours after she was reported missing. Head-on collision on N3 Five people have been injured, two of them critically, after an SUV and a light vehicle collided head-on near the Mooi River toll plaza. INSIDE NEWS24 Party poopers Many people get seriously injured while living it up. Beware these pitfalls. Life-changing 00s Was it only a decade ago that a blackberry was a mere fruit? Time to get healthy? Need tips on detox, diet and exercise? We've got it! Return of the King Seven-time F1 champion Michael Schumacher returns to the grid in 2010. Popping bubbly Food24 takes you through the fine art of opening the fizz. Cape Town on a budget Get by with your money when travelling to the Mother City. PROMOTION ........................................................................................................................................................................................ Save NOW with OUTsurance - you always get something OUT! Enjoy affordable insurance premiums, guaranteed for a year! Click here for an insurance quote and save monthly. ........................................................................................................................................................................................ African Palace Online Casino - R8.5 Million Jackpot Won! Marie van Wyk is now R8.5 Million richer! She took R80 to play the Beach Life Progressive Slot and one spin changed her life forever, making her an instant millionaire. "I thought I had won R850 and decided to withdraw the money. When I logged back in, I saw my account was sitting at R8.5 Million! I am still overwhelmed. Every day I have to remind myself that it is not a dream!". Click here to read more... MOST READMOST EMAILEDMOST COMMENTED Six dead in Christmas attack Teen murdered on toilet Brother kills to prevent rape Attack raises security concerns Missing girl found in woods WEATHERTRAFFICLOTTERY Cpt: 15-22°C Pta: 17-31°C Jhb: 14-29°C Bloem: 13-32°C Dbn: 19-23°C PE: 18-22°C 7 day forecasts... JOBS - FIND YOUR DREAM JOB CARS - SEARCH 1000'S OF NEW AND USED CARS AUDI 2009 Audi A3 2.0 T Sportback Manual - 24000kms Lava Grey & Tan leather interior R 275 000 NISSAN Sentra 160 Si 2001 R 49,900.00 MERCEDES C320 Elegance AT MY00 2004 R 159,995.00 TOYOTA Avensis 2.0 Advanced AT 2008 R 199,990.00 PROPERTY - FIND A NEW HOME TRAVEL - LOOK, BOOK, GO! FREE GAMES - TOO MUCH NEWS? TAKE A BREAK! KALAHARI.NET - SHOP ONLINE TODAY Sponsored links Life Insurance Car Insurance Insurance for Women Life Insurance for Women Get up to R1 000 free! Personal Loans and Credit Cards Free Business Insurance Quote Restore your balance UK Lottery Hot Deal of the Day! Merry Christmas! From the kalahari.net Team Visit kalahari.net for fantastic savings on millions of products like books, music, DVDs, games, iPods & more! Plus get your parcel delivered straight to your doorstep! Up to 40% Off Sale on All Books, Toys, CDs, DVDs & Games!
12/17/2009 12:00 PM unknown	Pentagon to master lightning	0.0	U	USA		lightning guns ?		Education,Military,Science
The Pentagon Launches Plan to Master Lightning Updated: 8 days 8 hours ago Print Text Size E-mail More Sharon Weinberger Contributor (Dec. 17) -- In Greek mythology, it was a weapon of war. Now the U.S. military is looking to tame lightning, which remains one of nature's most confounding -- and feared -- phenomena. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the R&D arm of the Pentagon, has embarked on a project called NIMBUS, which seeks to understand the underlying mechanisms of lightning. "Although significant progress has been made in recent years in our understanding of the lightning discharge and related phenomena, fundamental questions remain unanswered," the agency said in an announcement released today. Lightning has long perplexed scientists. Not only are atmospheric scientists unsure of exactly what initiates lightning, but they also don't understand precisely how and why it is able to propagate over great distances, and where it will strike. That makes it, in DARPA's view, "one of the major unsolved mysteries in the atmospheric sciences." Gene Blevins, AP The fanciful-sounding NIMBUS project has a serious goal: curbing the $5 billion in damage that lightning strikes cause each year. Lightning is not only little understood, it is dangerous and destructive -- strikes cause more than $5 billion in damages annually, according to the Lightning Safety Institute. NIMBUS will look at ways to protect against that destruction, including attempting to direct where lightning strikes. The initiative also includes plans to try to trigger lightning using rockets, which could be used to model and study the discharges. This by no means is the military's first foray into lightning research. Pentagon officials have in the past expressed interest in other enigmatic phenomena associated with lightning, such as so-called ball lightning. Though its existence is disputed, ball lightning is purported to manifest itself as luminous, energetic spheres during storms. The Pentagon has even funded modest efforts looking at whether ball lightning could be used as a weapon. Another, somewhat more straightforward application of lightning, not mentioned as part of the DARPA project, is the possibility of creating a "lightning gun" -- a weapon that shoots bolts of electricity. In fact, the Defense Department has funded work in this area. A Tuscon, Ariz., company called Applied Energetics (formerly Ionatron) has received a number of multimillion-dollar contracts from the Army and Navy to develop a lightning weapon that uses ultra-short laser pulses to channel electrostatic discharges. Another company, Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems, in Anderson, Ind., has built a prototype of a lightning gun, named StunStrike. But don't look to NIMBUS to yield a deployable death ray. DARPA says the project has a more benign goal: the protection of people and assets.
12/17/2009 12:00 PM Killed	boy killed 7 injured	0.0	M	Dutywa South Africa
A TEENAGE boy was killed and seven people were taken to hospital in Dutywa after they were struck by lightning in separate incidents this week, police said yesterday. Captain Ling’sile Magama said the 16-year-old was on his way from Fort Malan to Nqabara village in Dutywa on Tuesday when he was struck and killed in Willowvale. An inquest docket has been opened. The seven injured – six young girls and a woman – were taken to a hospital in Butterworth after they were struck by lightning late in the afternoon while in a two-roomed flat in Nqabara village. Nothing was damaged inside the flat, Magama said. Both lightning strikes happened during the rainy weather currently in the area. – Sapa
12/15/2009 07:00 PM Killed	3 men	0.0	U	Soweta		under tree
THREE men were killed by lightning while standing under a tree to escape a heavy downpour on Sunday night. The three men, believed to be Mozambique nationals aged between 27 to 35, had rented rooms at Zwelitsha Trust near White River and were returning home when they were struck down at about 7pm. KaNyamazane police spokesperson Inspector Andries Sikwambana told Sowetan yesterday that there had been heavy rains accompanied by powerful thunder in the area. Struck simultaneously “The three men were apparently coming from work when they were struck by lightning. “They ran towards a big tree in an apparent attempt to shield themselves from the heavy rain. “It was hardly a few minutes later when lightning struck all of them simultaneously,” Sikwambana said. “They died on the spot and members of the community who later discovered them called us to the scene.” He said the identities of the men would be revealed after the police had tracked down their families – believed to be living in Mozambique. Sikwambana warned that it was extremely dangerous to stand under a tree when there was lightning because trees were powerful conductors of electricity.
12/15/2009 02:15 PM Injured	2 men in army	0.0	M	Darwin Australia
BOLT FROM THE BLUE: Dirk Reinbrecht in hospital after he was struck by lightning while working in the suburb of Lyons. Picture: BRAD FLEET TWO men are lucky to be alive after being zapped by lightning in separate strikes just streets apart. The pair were recovering from their ordeals in Royal Darwin Hospital last night. Dirk Reinbecht, 43, was connecting the safety chain from a trailer to a ute at 2.15pm when the trailer was struck by a bolt of lightning and he was thrown several metres through the air on Damabila St in Lyons. Just minutes later, a 22-year-old man - who declined to be interviewed or named - was also reportedly injured by lightning while working with electrical cabling not far away on Danimila Tce in the same suburb. Mr Reinbecht said it was "some sort of miracle" that he wasn't killed. "I saw the light that threw me back from the car," he said. "But I'm alright. "I have never been hit by lightning before - I hope that was my first and last time." Mr Reinbecht had been finishing a landscaping job when the incident happened. His colleague David Taylor was 20m away when the lightning struck. "I thought he was dead," he said. "I saw a flash of light between 2-3m long - then I saw my friend go down. "I got to him and found he was conscious - to my surprise. But he was in total shock." Eric Leland and Nathan Kennedy were working nearby when Mr Reinbecht was hit and rushed to his aid. "I saw a big flash and a bloke lying on the ground," Mr Leland said. NT WorkSafe executive director Laurene Hull said she had received a report that a landscaper at Lyons was injured by lightning. "NT Worksafe will follow up on the nature and seriousness of the injury," she said. "However, it is not anticipated that a formal investigation will be required." Justice Department acting media manager Leanne Coleman could not be contacted to comment on the second lightning incident.
12/11/2009 12:00 AM unknown	DLR Storm Research	0.0	U	Germany				Education,Science
The DLR storm research program Storms are more than just spectacular weather events; they also exercise considerable influence on atmospheric chemistry and Earth’s climate. Lightning combines nitrogen and oxygen to form large amounts of nitrogen oxide. However, it is not known just how much nitrogen oxide is created by these events. Researchers from the German Aerospace Agency (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) Institute of Atmospheric Physics (Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre) in Oberpfaffenhofen have come up with some very surprising results: tropical storms create less nitrogen oxide than had been expected. DLR's researchers from the Oberpfaffenhofen institute have been investigating extreme tropical storms in recent years with numerous missions using research aircraft and lightning-location equipment in four continents. The results were quite unexpected and cast a completely new light on processes inside extreme storm clouds: "Although tropical storms unleash a very large number of lightning strikes, they produce far less nitrogen oxide than we expected. Our detailed investigations demonstrate that not only the number of flashes is important, but also their length", says Dr Heidi Huntrieser, a meteorologist at the institute. "In short-lived tropical storms, lightning flashes are shorter, on average, than in our part of the world, where wind shear is more pronounced", Dr Huntrieser adds. The greater wind shear results in greater changes in wind strength and direction with increasing altitude. This separates the up- and down-draught zones of a storm cell and the storm is thus able to increase in intensity, grow in size and last longer. Work by NASA has confirmed the recently published results of the DLR institute’s research programme. Flying into the heart of the storm with DLR research plane Falcon In recent years, the DLR Institute has flown numerous measurement missions in the context of EU tropical research programmes. It is in this part of the world, where most storms occur, that nitrogen oxide measurements were made by flights right into the heart of storm clouds. DLR set up a ground-based Lightning Detection Network (LINET) to measure lightning activity in the clouds. In 2004 and 2005, DLR's Falcon research plane was used for flights in Brazil and these were followed by missions in Australia and West Africa. In Darwin, at the tropical northern tip of Australia, one of the strongest and most regular storms in the world, Hector, was investigated in detail. Storms possibly have only a limited effect on climate Lightning creates nitrogen oxide, which can also form ozone, an important greenhouse gas. It has so far been assumed that stronger storms would occur in a warmer world, leading to more nitrogen oxide and ozone formation, which would in turn influence the climate in a feedback loop. According to the DLR researchers, the opposite is more likely to be true. Storms would be more violent in a warmer world, but they would be less frequent. This could even reduce the mean incidence of lightning flashes around the world as a whole. This hypothesis would also explain some long-term observations of lightning trends. The effect of storms on climate, according to these results, is likely to be the opposite of what has often been believed so far. The DLR Institute of Atmospheric Physics used the ECHAM global climate model in its research. Contact: Miriam Kamin, German Aerospace Center, Corporate Communications, Oberpfaffenhofen, Tel.: +49 8153 28-2297 Source: German Aerospace Agency (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR)
12/09/2009 12:00 AM Killed	3 people	0.0	U	Lusaka
Lightning strikes three, croc kills one Three people from different families were over the weakened killed by lightning in chief Mungaila’s area. Another man of Katengwa ward in chief Mungaila’s area was killed by a crocodile in the Kafue River as he drew water from the water source. District Commissioner, Wilson Siandunka, confirmed the two incidences yesterday and named the deceased as, Rebecca Nshingwee aged 19 years, Dilu Nakaande aged 27 and an 8-year-old boy. Mr Siadunka said lightning struck the three at their respective homes and all of them died instantly. Mr Siadunka named the 21-year-old man of Katengwa ward who was killed by a crocodile on Saturday as Richard Nalishuwa of Nalishuwa village of Katengwa. The DC said the body of the deceased croc victim has not yet been found, adding that search teams with the help of State police were in the area in an attempt to try to search for the body. Mr Siandunka, who visited the homes of the bereaved families, expressed sadness at the deaths of the four people on a single day. “As government we sincerely convey our deepest condolences to the affected families and pray that the Lord is going to be with the families during this difficult time,” said Mr Siadunka. ZANIS
12/09/2009 10:30 AM Killed	construction worker	28.0	M	Hamad Town Bahrain		working on a roof		On a Roof,Outside
Local News Safety alert after death By ANIQA HAIDER , Posted on » Wednesday, December 09, 2009 A CONSTRUCTION worker killed when he was struck by lightning yesterday could have survived if he was wearing proper safety clothing, according to a senior labour official. Nemi Chand Ram Lal, aged 28, from India, is said to have died instantly when he was struck by lightning at around 10.30am on the roof of a house under construction in Hamad Town. His colleagues Lasmanna Yenuganti Yeuuganti Mjthanna, 36, from India, and Alamgir Miah Faruk Miah, 33, from Bangladesh, were injured and required hospital treatment. Labour Ministry occupational health and safety head Abbas Al Matooq yesterday said there were no plans to stop outdoor work going ahead during lightning storms - adding this could be the first case of someone being killed by lightning in Bahrain. However, he urged companies to ensure their staff wore proper safety equipment at worksites. "We always insist that workers should not ignore the safety rules and wear their helmets, uniform and (proper) shoes. "If this worker had been wearing a helmet and safety shoes, he could have survived. "Two engineers went to the site and investigated the incident. We don't want the construction companies to stop working in such weather, but they should take precautionary measures. Mr Lal had worked for the Mohammed Saif Al Ajlan Almannai Contracting Company for four years. He was initially taken to the Hamad Town Health Centre, but was pronounced dead upon arrival, company office clerk P V Mohan told the GDN. His body was later transferred to the Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) morgue. Mr Mjthanna, a married father of three who has worked for the company for eight months, and Mr Miah, an employee for the past 18 months, were both being treated at the SMC's Intensive Care Unit last night. Mr Lal is survived by his wife of 18 months, Siroj. aneeqa@gdn.com.bh
12/07/2009 05:30 PM Killed	private student	20.0	M	Subang Jaya Malaysia		getting into his car
Student Killed By Lightning In Subang Jaya PETALING JAYA, Dec 7 (Bernama) -- A 20-year-old private college student was fatally struck by lightning as he was getting into his car after a basketball match in Taipan, Subang Jaya, on Sunday. Tan Han Wim and three friends had just finished playing at 5.30pm and decided to go home because the weather was turning gloomy. His friends called his father who rushed there immediately and took Tan to the Subang Jaya Medical Centre but he died on the way. His body was taken to the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre for a post-mortem. Subang Jaya OCPD ACP Zainal Rashid Abu Bakar confirmed the incident. -- BERNAMA

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