More than five dozen people died in succeeding lightning strikes that hit Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is currently enduring their annual severe storm season. Reports said most strikes hit the rural areas where farmers and construction workers perished.
Reaz Ahmed, director general of Bangladesh's Department of Disaster Management, told CNN that the deadliest was the once that occurred on Thursday, which killed 34 people.
"We are discussing with our meteorological experts on why the deaths are higher this year," he said.
As per Associated Press, there are some theories pertaining to why deaths brought by lighting strikes increased in Bangladesh. One is that cellphones prompted the frequency of the strikes.
John Jensenius, a lightning expert from the National Weather Service, debunked the theory in an e-mail to USA Today.
"People are struck because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The wrong place is anywhere outside. The wrong time is anytime a thunderstorm is nearby," he said in the e-mail.
The most feasible explanation for the death is that deforestation has aggravated the problem, with the lack of trees making farmers working in fields a target for lightning strikes.
Each lightning strike can contain up to one billion volts of electricity. National Geographic noted that lightning is dangerous and extremely hot as a flash can heat the air around it to temperatures five times hotter than the sun's surface.
Statistics show that about 2,000 people are killed worldwide by lightning each year. It is estimated that Earth as a whole is struck by an average of more than a hundred lightning bolts every second.
As per the case of Bangladesh, the storms were caused by strong cold fronts moving out of the Himalayas and southeastward, encountering warm, moist air from the Bay of Bengal.
The government is currently providing $ 253 to victims' families and $126 to the wounded.
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