Lightning related human casualties in Mongolia

Lightning related casualties collected by the Institute of Meteorology in Mongolia from 2003 to 2015 have been analyzed. Being a country with one of the lowest population density, Mongolia records a relatively high human death rate per unit population per year, 15.4 dptm yr-1, which is much higher than that of many countries with similar isokeraunic level. During this period 57 deaths and 58 injuries have been reported, thus death to injury ratio is nearly 1:1. Around 88% of both deaths and injuries has been reported to be occurred while the victim is in wild area, typically the low-grown slopes in steppe climate. Other 12% of the death and injury cases have been located either in open spaces within the village or inside the fabric enclosed houses known as ger. Nearly 80% of the gender known deaths are of males. Almost 100% of the deaths of which the time of incident is known has happened between noon and midnight. Almost all case of injuries have also been reported during the same period. About 80% of the age-reported deaths were of people below 30 years. Slightly more than 50% of the deaths and 54% of the injuries have been reported from Central province

Concerns of the application of lightning protection risk assesment for small structures

International Standards on lightning protection risk assessment (IEC 62305-2: 2010) are well accepted and applied in many parts of the world. During the last few years a large number of lightning related accidents, especially due to direct strikes, have been reported from Asia and Africa where the lightning struck objects are small structures. Information gathered from several investigations done on these cases have been used to determine the level of protection needed for these structures as per the standard risk assessment. In many cases the outcome was the none-requirement of any LPS for such structures or a risk factor for direct strike probability which is less than the critical value. As there are millions of similar structures in these regions, we propose the development of a separate risk assessment algorithm for such structures, especially in underdeveloped countries

Lightning incidents in Mongolia

This is one of the first studies that has been conducted in Mongolia on the distribution of lightning incidents. The study covers a 10-year period from 2004 to 2013. The country records a human death rate of 15.4 deaths per 10 million people per year, which is much higher than that of many countries with similar isokeraunic level. The reason may be the low-grown vegetation observed in most rural areas of Mongolia, a surface topography, typical to steppe climate. We suggest modifications to Gomes–Kadir equation for such countries, as it predicts a much lower annual death rate for Mongolia. The lightning incidents spread over the period from May to August with the peak of the number of incidents occurring in July. The worst lightning affected region in the country is the central part. Compared with impacts of other convective disasters such as squalls, thunderstorms and hail, lightning stands as the second highest in the number of incidents, human deaths and animal deaths. Economic losses due to lightning is only about 1% of the total losses due to the four extreme weather phenomena. However, unless precautionary measures are not promoted among the public, this figure of losses may significantly increase with time as the country is undergoing rapid industrialization at present