Lightning-Caused Deaths and Injuries at Schools

Abstract—Lightning casualties in developing countries often involve people inside unsafe structures and working outside during labor-intensive agriculture. A prominent scenario is the reporting of several events per year of multiple fatalities and injuries at schools in developing countries. To date, there has not been a collection of such cases. This paper summarizes 123 reports of lightning casualties at schools outside the United States in the last 14 years that involved 218 fatalities and 710 injuries.

There were surprisingly large numbers of people killed or injured per event, partially because they were clustered closely together in the school setting as well as because of the lack of lightning protection or flooring at most village schools. Although the age range peaked between 11 and 15 years old with almost exactly the same number of males as females, as might be expected at schools, only 17% of the cases reported ages so this may be an incomplete finding.

The most common school type was a primary school, followed by secondary school. Although the classroom was the most frequent single location of school lightning events, more total cases were related to outdoor activities in the school yard, playground, and under trees and verandahs than in the classroom. Since schools are often the most substantial buildings in villages, properly designed, installed and maintained lightning protection systems may be particularly effective. In addition, policies to bring students into lightning-safe locations when they are available are indicated.

Although it was often raining or raining hard, there were also cases with drizzle or no rain reported at the time and location so that monitored and reliable weather warnings are valuable. As expected for schools, events were most common from Monday through Friday, and most were in the afternoon.

A combination of teacher and student education about lightning risk, installation of lightning protection systems and reliable injury prevention policies may be lifesaving in these locations.