By Jatindra Dash
BHUBANESWAR, Aug 5 (Reuters) – Lightning strikes killed at least 14 people in India’s mineral-rich eastern state of Jharkhand, police said, the latest deaths linked to annual monsoon rains that unleashed floods and landslides elsewhere.
• Farm workers amid crops in open fields accounted for most of the 10 dead in the state’s Giridih district, police said.
• Tuesday’s lightning strikes – a common feature of monsoon rainstorms – also injured at least seven, they added.
• On Wednesday, India’s weather office forecast widespread rainfall in the state over the next few days.
• Jharkhand saw more than 200 deaths in 2025, mainly attributed to “lightning associated with thunderstorms”, the India Meterological Department said in January.
• This year’s torrential rains brought intense floods in India’s rugged northeastern state of Assam, killing nearly 90, while 15 died in the southern state of Kerala, where rains displaced thousands from their homes.
(Reporting by Jatindra Dash, Writing by Hritam Mukherjee and Clarence Fernandez)
