During the monsoon season, intense periods of lashing rains and storming skies ensure that the seasonal wetlands or haor region of north-eastern Bangladesh are flooded to become vast bodies of freshwater. Then, the region becomes a magnet for wildlife and local farming communities looking to boost meagre incomes by fishing. But as global temperatures rise and thunderstorms become more frequent in this part of Asia, the broad water expanses are increasingly a death trap that exposes fishers and their families to frequent and deadly lightning strikes.

Frightened of thunderstorms, many residents scaled back their movements and limited after dark fishing sorties across the open water expanses during the monsoon season. Yet, they did not want to entirely abandon the fertile fishing grounds that boosted their incomes. Working with local government representatives, they found a way to adapt to their new reality with the construction of a series of ‘lightning sheds’ or refuges where people can shelter safely during a storm.

“Last year three people died in this haor in the rainy season because they did not find any shelter to survive,” said Shabana Khatun, wife of a fisherman in Rofinagar Mirzapur, Rofinagar Union Dirai, Sunamganj. “We have relatives but could not visit them because we were scared as it was not safe to visit them with kids and travel through this haor in the rainy season....Now we can go without any fear as there is that lightning shed. The lightning shed make us feel safe in the haor, now men can earn more as they can do fishing at night,” she added.

Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of death by lightning on the planet with over three hundred recorded fatalities in any one year, compared to less than 20 fatalities in the United States of America, which has almost double the population. As carbon emission build in the earth’s atmosphere and average global temperatures rise, the frequency and intensity of powerful storms is increasing in northern Bangladesh and nearby Nepal, leading to more lightning strikes. Today, the Government of Bangladesh records hundreds of deaths by lightning each year compared to just 37 deaths during the entire 1950s, with most of the strikes occurring in the June – October monsoon period. In 2016, the government added lightning strikes to the country’s list of official disasters alongside floods, earthquakes, cyclones and other climate shocks.

As well as global warming, behavioural and environmental change is also making Bangladeshis more vulnerable to powerful electrical storms. Deforestation for food production means there is more open space, leaving farmers vulnerable to strikes. Some research suggests that carrying a mobile phone can increase the chances of a lightning strike proving fatal, by drawing lightning into the body, rather leaving it to ‘flash over’ the skin.

Lightning is an electrical discharge that can heat the air around it to five times the temperature of the sun’s surface. Lightning happens as a result of an imbalance between storm clouds and the ground, or between storm clouds themselves, which intensifies when rain droplets collide, such as during a violent monsoon rain. When the charge is released from the cloud in the form of a lightning bolt, a charge of up to one billion volts of electricity can collide with the earth at a speed of up to 3,000,000,000 kilometres per hour.

The Local Government Initiative on Climate Change, or LoGIC Project, is funded by the European Union and Sida, the Swedish development agency. LoGIC works with local government authorities and their communities to develop strategies for adapting to the impacts of climate change using the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility approach, which was designed by the UN Capital Development Fund over ten years ago. Local governments in Bangladesh have received over US$ 11 million for community-led resilience building using LoCAL’s Performance-Based Climate Resilience Grants for targeted spending on locally identified adaptation investments. ISO 19093:22 is based on the methodology and implementation experience from LoCAL’s Performance Based Climate Resilience Grants and provides a standard for channelling finance to sub-national authorities for adaptation to climate change.

In Rofinagar Mirzapur, the community chose to prioritise the building of a lightning shed as a result of bottom-up consultations. These were backed up by nationally gathered data, which distilled climate change projections to create a risk profile for the region. The scheme was also included in the recently approved National Adaptation Plan (NAP) of Bangladesh.

“Farmers and fishermen used to die because of lightning while working because there was no safe place to get shelter,” said Ali Akbar, a farmer and seasonal fisherman in the village Rofinagar. “Now we can quickly move to the lightning shed and be safe when suddenly storm starts.”

The sheds are constructed from concrete and stand some 10 metres high with a lightning rod on top that guides any strike safely into the earth. The sheds are accessible from the ground level via concrete steps during the dry season, when the hoar waters recede. Their two-storey design ensures that when the monsoon rains come and the wetlands return to a vast watery lake, boats can moor alongside the higher steps like a jetty, making it easy for passengers and fishermen to access the second-floor shelter. The structure has no walls, but it does have a roof to keep off the rain and a water pump to provide free fresh drinking water to anyone taking refuge. The sheds are also equipped with solar panels that power lights, so fishers and travellers can easily spot the shelters at night.

During the 2020-2021 financial year, the LoGIC project worked with local government authorities to construct three lightning sheds, which are now completed. Two sheds stand in Chayar haor, at Bahara and Atgaon, with a third at Kaliakota haor in Rafinagar. The total cost of the investment is BDT 28.4 million or about US$ 27,000 with co-finance of BDT 50000, or US $480, in the form of land. Some 1,875 people are benefitting from the lightning sheds, 840 of which are women.

The communities have set up an operation and maintenance committee to keep the lightning sheds in working order and the local government authorities have committed to cover any associated running and repair costs. The lightning sheds are proving popular in the region, with 18 more sheds planned for construction.

“We are getting benefits from the shed,” said Dulal, a fisherman from the village of Rofinagar. “Before this, we were in fear, we could not go to haor at night to catch fishes. We can now go to catch fish anytime without any fear of lightning or storm. Now we can take a rest, we can have fresh water as well as shelter.”

Find out more about LoGIC here

Find out more about LoCAL here

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