Lightning safety of under-privileged communities around Lake Victoria

Abstract

This is one of the first studies on lightning incidents that take place in the neighbourhood of Lake Victoria, the largest tropical lake in the world that borders Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. Lightning accident statistics in the region have been documented segment wise. The number of lightning occurrences in the northwestern shore and that in the northeastern shore were compared. The region has a distinctly recognizable season with high lightning accident density which runs from May to November and low lightning accident period from December to April. August peaks in lightning incidents. Lightning-related incidents are very much prevalent during the period between May and August due to the dominant south easterlies. The study reveals that the northwestern part has slightly higher lightning accidents than the northeastern part. Northeastern part records relatively high number of lightning accidents in the morning hours whereas the northwestern sector experiences the same in the afternoon hours. Many features of lightning accidents and their locations have features that are in agreement with the same observed in other parts of East Africa. Following the statistics collected and incidents observed, suitable safety measures have been recommended for the communities that reside in the shores and nearby areas of Lake Victoria.

Lightning environment in Burundi

“…The accident left 51 affected students who did not succumb to their injuries. The situation is very similar to the death of 18 school students and their teacher by a single lightning strike in Uganda in 201 1 [4,5].…”

Lightning Related Human Risks and Risk Management

“…Lightning casualties in the recent years have been reported by Mary and Gomes [2,4] in Uganda, Lubasi et al [5] and Gomes et al [6] in Zambia, Yi et al [7] and Zhang et al [8] in China, Cardoso et al [9,10], Cruz et al [11], Navarette-Aldana et al [12] and Villamil et al [13,14] in Colombia. A summary of the statistics in several countries have been given in and Holle [15].…”

“…As discussed in Mary and Gomes [4] and Gomes and Gomes [63] many communities with lower levels of education, especially those in developing countries, may ignore safety guidelines unless there is a hierarchical order of hazard control and a ladder of responsibility distribution. The hazard control mechanism should include awareness, forecasting, technology, local control and substitution, whereas the responsibility mechanism should ladder down in the sequence: government, non-governmental organizations, local authorities, community leadership and potential victim [63].…”

“…Presently, disagreement exists between people in different countries on the definition of these terms. Structures that would be classified as "temporary huts" in developed countries such as the USA, Canada, and Europe, may have been the permanent residences and workplaces ( Figure 1) for many societal layers for many generations in developing countries in Africa, South America and parts of Asia [2,4,5,22]. The number of lightning injuries to occupants of such structures can be quite high since the risk is 24/7 for all inhabitants [2,5].…”

“…Many will learn to accommodate for the injuries in time, but many will need to retrain or take lesser employment if they are able to return to employment at all. Reports from developing countries do not justify the 1 death: 9 survival split which is generally observed in developed countries [4,5,21,22].…”