Four farm workers were killed and three others injured due to a lightning strike in Andhra Pradesh's Eluru district. The incident occurred in Bhogole village in the early hours of Wednesday, August 17. The victims were working on a eucalyptus farm and had been resting in a tent in the field. Police identified the deceased as Rayudu Raju (30), Varupula Dharmaraju (26), Gutthula Konda Babu (32) and Konupu Reddy (20), according to The Hindu. Their bodies were taken to a hospital in Eluru for autopsy.
Ganesh, Arjun and Bullaiah, who were injured, were rushed to a government hospital in Eluru and were later shifted to Vijayawada for treatment. The victims had come for work from Annavaram in Kakinada district. The spot where the incident occurred was in a forest area, where police rushed after local residents alerted them, The Hindu reported. Around 30 persons were reportedly engaged in cutting work at the eucalyptus plantation when the incident occured.
In October 2019, around 129 sheep belonging to farmers were killed after lightning struck them in rural Guntur. The sheep were left in the grazing fields overnight by the farmers according to their usual practice but were found dead the next morning. Although the men were also sleeping nearby, they were not harmed. In the same month, a 55-year-old agricultural labourer named B Nageswara Rao was killed after being struck by lightning in nearby Krishna district. He was returning home from the fields with his livestock when lightning struck him.
In May 2018, five people were killed and several injured after thunderstorms and lightning strikes struck Guntur district. One of the deceased, Chinnapureddy Siva Reddy, had taken his buffaloes out to graze in the fields, and two buffaloes were also found lying dead in the field. In the same month, on May 13, 2018, six people died due to lightning strikes in Srikakulam district in north coastal Andhra. On the same day, three farmers also died of lightning in Telangana's Mancherial district.
With IANS inputs