Which he deadliest ray of history? is one of the questions that arise when learning that this summer a man died After an atmospheric electrical discharge struck one person in Quintana Roo, another survived in Yucatán and many residents felt the west of Mérida tremble yesterday (8/25/2024) due to a powerful lightning bolt.
In this regard, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) He answers that there is not one but two most deadly rays, and that each of these deadly rays has a world record of deaths since the 20th century.
The deadliest lightning strike: 469 victims
The WMO has records of 151-year-old electric shocks, from 1873 to 2024, and specifies that the lightning with the highest mortality rate fell the November 2, 1994 in Drunkcity of Egypt, and killed 469 people.
That November 2, 1994 the inhabitants of the area Drunkcity also called Durunka and located about 395 kilometers from Cairosuffered very severe thunderstorms that caused a lot of damage and flash flooding.
During these storms, lightning set fire to three oil storage tanks, each holding about 5,000 tons of jet fuel or diesel, located on a railroad track that then collapsed when flood waters built up behind it.
The fuel was ignited by the lightning strike and swept away by floodwaters into the village, where a large number of people died, the WMO said of this world record that has remained unbeaten for almost 32 years.
WMO research on the deadliest lightning
The immediate press coverage after the Dronka incident contained a death toll ranging from 200 to more than 500, the WMO said in its archive on this historic event.
“For example, Chris Hedges of the New York Times (November 2, 1994) reported that ‘at least 200 people were killed in southern Egypt today when an explosion and flooding caused burning fuel to spread through the streets of a small town.’
“Similarly, East Elkoussyof the UPI (United Press International), informó November 2, 1994 “Egyptian media and security sources said the latest death toll from an oil depot fire and torrential rains on Wednesday was 292 people in two southern provinces, with many more injured.”
Scientific experts
The WMO also said that the event prompted scientific research that estimated the number of deaths caused by the lightning.
For example, in 1997 the American meteorologist Thomas Grazulis He estimated that 430 people died from the electrical discharge that set fire to an army fuel depot.
“Some 15,000 tons of fuel on firesimilar to napalmflooded the village of Durunka, a village of 10,000 inhabitants“he said in his scientific article.
In turn, Horacio Torres-Sancheza Colombian scientist and world expert on lightning, cited that 530 people died in Dronka, Egypt, when lightning struck an oil tank.
Several studies after 2000 cite a specific figure, 469 deaths, but give no reference to that figure, the WMO said.
A crucial question about the most lethal ray
For the WMO, a major reason for the wide variation in death tolls is discrimination (or lack thereof) between Deaths associated with the oil tank fire and those associated with flash flooding caused by strong thunderstorms that caused lightning.
The doubt was resolved, he says, because fortunately, One of the members of the WMO committee discovered an official document from the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population dating from that time period and which reads in part (from Arabic translated to English): “Health sector officials said that Hospitals in the region had received 469 bodies from the affected village of Dronka.Security sources said flooding caused by the storm killed [a otras] 63 people in Assiut and neighbouring provinces.”
At the moment, Durunka It is a city of religious tourism, receiving thousands of pilgrims in the monastery of the Virgin Mary, built on Mount Assiut to remember that the Holy Family, Saint Joseph, the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus, came down from that mountain to return from Egypt to Bethlehem.
The deadliest single-strike lightning strike
In its list of records, the WMO also recognizes the lightning with the highest mortality rate (from a single strike).
According to the WMO, this lightning killed 21 personas in a hut in the Manica Tribal Trust Lands in Eastern Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe) he December 23, 1975.
The first source of this fact, says the WMO, was he Salt Lake City Tribune newspaper of December 25, 1975, which reported that Rhodesian Police reported that 24 people took shelter from the rain in a hut, but lightning killed 21 of them, including 14 childrenand only three survived.
In the explanation of this record, it is indicated that a member of the WMO committee believes that he saw an african newspaper which reported that 25 personas died from this lightning, but the official death toll is 21, printed in the edition of the Guinness Book of World Records from 1977, because that newspaper was not located.
Carbonization, from paralysis by lightning
Regarding these meteorological events, the WMO states that it is valid to ask whether all deaths are directly related to the lightning strike or to secondary causes.
For example, he says, in developing countries there are many reports of ten or more deaths from lightning, sometimes with journalists reporting “bodies charred” or “burned beyond recognition.”
In this regard, he explains that the rays often cause keraunoparalysisparalysis that may take minutes or hours to resolve, sometimes with persistent pain or weakness in the affected areas.
The mention of the hut raises the possibility that the victims were inside the hut at the time of their injury.
The keraunoparalysis may cause Healthy people cannotn evict or escape while the strawwhich is often generations old and dry as tinder, burns and falls on themcausing “charred bodies,” details the WMO.
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2024-09-10 03:27:13
