How shelters are protecting haor communities from lightning
Although trees can act as natural lightning conductors in vulnerable areas, they take too long to grow. Manmade shelters look to provide immediate cover
"Beside the canal, leaning against the trunk of the huge banyan tree, stood Haru Ghosh. Right there, the god of the sky cast a wrathful glance upon him and his grizzled hair and his rough, pockmarked skin were burnt to a crisp".
This is how Manik Bandopadhyay described the death of Haru Ghosh by lightning in Putulnacher Itikotha.
Turns out Manik was precise in depicting the rage of the sky god. When the sky god is angry, his glare is immense, and it is always people like Haru Ghosh — those who embody rural Bengal, farming under the open sky — who bear the brunt of that fury, because more than half a century later, little has changed.
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According to the Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (RIMES), an intergovernmental organisation that supports disaster risk reduction across Asia and Africa, lightning claims around 300 lives in Bangladesh every year.
We brought community members together and explained the need for the project. We explained that one shelter was planned for their area and asked whether anyone would be willing to donate land for the greater good. We also told them that if the pilot proved successful, the model could be replicated across the country, benefiting many more communities." Md Liakath Ali, director, Disaster Risk Management Programme, BRAC
RIMES also estimates that the country is struck by nearly 3.36 million lightning flashes annually, with the northeastern districts of Sunamganj, Netrokona and Sylhet bearing the greatest burden of fatalities.
But why these areas in particular? The answer lies in their geography: most are haors (wetlands).
During the monsoon, people spend long hours farming on these lands or fishing, and the timing coincides with the months when lightning is most frequent. When farmers are working out in the open or fishers are out on the water, they often notice dark clouds and realise that a lightning storm may be approaching.
But the haor landscape stretches for miles with nothing but agricultural land and open water. There are often no houses or large trees within sight. As a result, when lightning strikes, farmers and fishers have nowhere to seek immediate refuge. With no nearby trees, buildings or other safe places to take shelter, there is often little they can do when the sky god glares.
Lightning is most frequent between April and September, a period that coincides with the pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons. Around 90% of lightning events in Bangladesh occur during these months.
Even though lightning continues to claim a significant number of lives in Bangladesh, when people think of monsoon disasters, they usually think first of floods and cyclones, followed by landslides.
Today, even during a major cyclone, the death toll is often in the single digits or, at most, around 20 people. Floods still cause fatalities, but the numbers have fallen considerably because of improved disaster management.
Lightning, however, remains a major but overlooked threat.
Since the government officially declared lightning a disaster in 2016, a nationwide campaign has been launched to plant palmyra palm (taal) trees, in hopes they will act as natural lightning conductors in vulnerable areas.
The idea is simple: taller trees are more likely to intercept lightning strikes, potentially reducing the risk to people nearby.
However, there is a significant limitation. Palm trees take many years to grow tall enough to provide meaningful protection. They cannot protect communities immediately.
To address this urgent risk, BRAC's Disaster Risk Management Programme (DRMP) has constructed five lightning safety shelters — four in Shalla and Dirai upazilas of Sunamganj and one in Sariakandi upazila of Bogura.
"We believe safety shelters offer a more practical short-term solution. While tree plantation remains valuable as a long-term strategy, purpose-built shelters equipped with proper lightning arresters and earthing systems can provide immediate protection over a much wider area," Khondoker Golam Tawhid, Head of Programme at BRAC DRMP, told TBS.
"At BRAC, we work on a wide range of disaster management initiatives, and we have a strong presence in many of the regions where lightning-related deaths are most common. Through our field offices, we were receiving firsthand information about these incidents, which made us realise that this was an area where intervention was urgently needed," he added.
When BRAC began exploring what kind of work had already been done, it found some initiatives by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Apart from that, there had been no significant intervention.
So BRAC began engaging directly with affected communities — people who had either experienced lightning incidents themselves or lived in high-risk areas.
BRAC DRMP organised consultations at the community level to understand their experiences and identify practical ways to protect people from lightning.
Through these discussions, it became clear that the greatest impact of lightning is the loss of human and animal lives. People are killed, and livestock such as cattle and goats are also lost. Unlike floods or cyclones, lightning generally does not cause widespread damage to crops or homes.
Its primary impact is the loss of life.
During the consultations, community members suggested a practical solution: building small safety shelters in the middle of agricultural areas.
Constructing large shelters would require significant amounts of land, making them difficult to build. Smaller shelters, however, could provide nearby refuge for people working in the fields.
This idea became the foundation of BRAC DRMP's project.
The organisation also consulted with the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD), which is capable of forecasting lightning by analysing weather patterns and cloud formations.
Together, BRAC and BMD determined that shelters should be located within approximately a 30-minute walking distance from any point where farmers typically work.
This would allow people enough time to reach safety if they received advance warning of an approaching lightning storm.
"Building safety shelters required land, but we could not simply occupy someone's property or purchase land for every shelter," said Md Liakath Ali, director of DRMP and the Climate and Environmental Innovation Programme (CEIP).
"We brought community members together and explained the need for the project. We explained that one shelter was planned for their area and asked whether anyone would be willing to donate land for the greater good. We also told them that if the pilot proved successful, the model could be replicated across the country, benefiting many more communities," he added.
After discussions with farmers and landowners, many voluntarily agreed to provide land.
Along the roads that run through the haors, small unused patches are usually left where harvested crops are gathered and processed. Since many people naturally gather in these places during the harvest season, they became ideal locations for the shelters, allowing large numbers of people to take refuge quickly during a lightning storm.
Once the locations had been selected, attention turned to the shelter design.
"We adopted a two-storey design because the haor region remains flooded for part of the year, including during the lightning season. A single-storey structure could easily become submerged," said Khondoker Golam Tawhid.
The ground floor was therefore designed to remain open, so floodwater could pass through it. Even if the lower level is underwater, people can still reach the upper floor by boat and use it as a safe shelter.
"These shelters serve multiple purposes," said Liakath Ali. "Each shelter includes a tube well, providing access to safe drinking water. People can also use the space to rest. In haor areas, where people often travel long distances through floodwaters, they can moor their boats, take a break and access drinking water. Community engagement was essential to help people understand these broader benefits."
The structures are elevated on reinforced columns so they remain above floodwaters. A staircase allows people to climb safely into the shelter, even when the surrounding land is submerged.
The roof is deliberately wide, providing protection from multiple directions, while side walls reduce the chance of wind-driven rain entering the shelter.
Each structure is also equipped with a 150-foot lightning arrester connected to an earthing system, safely directing electrical current into the ground and protecting those inside.
"Although no established model for such lightning safety shelters previously existed in Bangladesh, we developed this design through extensive discussions with architects and engineers. The result is an innovative pilot that combines engineering, disaster preparedness and community participation," said Liakath Ali.
"If the project proves successful, it has the potential to become a scalable model for protecting vulnerable communities across the country from one of the fastest-growing climate-related hazards."
Liakath remains hopeful that the pilot could pave the way for a nationwide solution.
But he ends on a cautious note, "With climate change driving up temperatures, the risk is expected to increase further. Scientists estimate that a 1°C rise in temperature could lead to a 30% increase in lightning activity. In recent years, particularly between 2015 and 2025, Bangladesh has witnessed a noticeable rise in lightning-related deaths."
