A long the rutted village roads of this sub-district in central Bangladesh, one plant stands out: Young palm trees.
Hundreds have been planted since 2017 in an effort to combat one of Bangladesh’s fastest-growing disaster threats — a surge in deadly lightning strikes. In Bangladesh, moist and hot air flowing from the Bay of Bengal and colder, heavier air descending from the Himalayas have long collided in lightning-sparking thunderstorms, said Murad Ahmed Farukh, an environmental scientist at Bangladesh Agricultural University.
But as the atmosphere warms as a result of climate change, and holds more moisture, deadly lightning strikes are happening more frequently than before, turning lightning into one of the South Asian nation’s deadliest disasters. Last year, around 360 people in Bangladesh were killed by lightning strikes — more than by floods or cyclones, according to the nation’s disaster ministry. In 2016, 80 people died in a single stormy day.
Ghior is now one of the communities trying to find ways to cut the risks, in part by planting fast-growing palm trees that can divert strikes away from people.
Local authorities began sowing palm seeds in 2017 in response to a call from Prime Minister Shaikh Hasina, who also urged that buildings be constructed with earthing systems, to discharge electricity from lightning strikes to the ground. Lightning protection measures are now part of the country’s national disaster management plan and its National Building Code.
Abdul Baten, an elected official in Ghior, has used $500 from the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief’s food-for-work programme to grow more than 500 palms, he said.
“This is a preemptive measure by the government to cut loss of lives to lightning,” Baten said, standing along a road lined with young palms. So far, Bangladesh’s disaster management department has supported sowing of 4.8 million palms nationwide, exceeding an initial target of 1 million, an agency official said.
Still, lightning continues to cause deaths in Ghior sub-district, most recently claiming 55-year-old Mongol Chandra Sarker in August as he walked to a pond to bathe.
Abdul Baten, a 57-year-old farmer, said he now leaves his fields if it begins to rain.
Unlike in the past, “Now we go back home as soon as we see dark clouds in the sky,” he said.
So does brick kiln worker Abdul Latif, 55, who said he had not heard about climate change but could see the weather
getting warmer.
A Z M Anas GHIOR
— Thomson Reuters Foundation
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