Bihar State PCS

• 12 Nov 2022

Hooter will be used to Save from Lightning in Bihar

Why In News?

• According to information received from official sources of Bihar State Disaster Authority on November 11, 2022, the authority has decided to install hooters in all districts to save people from lightning, so that people can get information about lightning 40 minutes in advance.

Key Points

• According to official sources, under the pilot project, this hooter will be used in Aurangabad, Patna and Gaya districts. It will be launched by January.
• At present, the information of falling thunder is given 30 minutes before the Indra Vajra app. More than 1.25 lakh people have downloaded this app, but the problem is not going away in rural areas. Farmers working in the fields are not getting this message due to the non-availability of mobiles. For this reason, the authority has decided to install hooters in the villages.
• Authority officials said that the sound of the hooter is five kilometers. will go up. The hooter will ring half an hour before the fall. Farmers working in the fields will also move to a safer place as soon as they hear its sound.
• Apart from this, a lightning driver will also be installed, which has been started. This device will be installed on government buildings and it will attract the rain falling within an area of 130 meters.
• Significantly, every year many people die due to lightning in Bihar. Due to increase in incidents of lightning in Bihar, the death toll has also increased. In the last five years, 1475 people have died due to lightning.
• According to the annual lightning report 2021-22 released in June 2022, Bihar is at the tenth position in terms of lightning. During this, 2,59,266 incidents of thunderstorms were recorded in Bihar, which is 23 percent less than in 2020-21. Earlier in the year 2018, 3000 people had died due to lightning across the country, out of which 302 people were from Bihar. At the same time, the death toll due to lightning in 2019 stood at 221.
• In Bihar, four lakh rupees are paid by the government as ex-gratia grant to the dependents of people who die due to lightning or any natural calamity.
• It is known that due to the friction of the clouds present in the sky, an electricity is generated, due to which negative charge is generated. At the same time, positive charge is already present in the earth. Both negative and positive charges are attracted towards each other. When a conductor comes between these two charges, there is an electric discharge, but there is no conductor in the sky, then this electric discharge falls to the earth in the form of a drop.