A family in Solai is mourning their secondary school girl who was killed on Saturday by lightning.
The incident occurred while four girls were walking.
Three others were seriously injured and are receiving treatment.
“It is true. We are mourning again as one girl has died out of the lightning. Three others were badly injured,” James Tuitoek said.
The incident occurred just months after deadly floods swept the area when a dam broke leaving up to 48 people dead.
The Patel dam broke and the raging water damaged nearby villages badly.
“We need prayers here now. Where are these disasters attacking us one after the other?” Esther Wanjiru said.
According to the Washington Post, this is how lightning strokes kill:
When a lightning stroke, containing maybe 20,000 or more amperes of current, hits the ground all of this electricity doesn’t just disappear into the earth. It spreads out in the ground as a potentially deadly current with its voltage decreasing with distance from where it hit.
Such currents are lightning’s biggest danger because they affect large areas in circles extending out from where lightning reaches the ground, such as at the bottom of a tree.
High-speed, lightning research photos have shown ground-current arcs (sparks) as far as 60 feet from where lightning hit the ground.
If you happen to be standing in a place affected by a ground current, it can travel up one leg, through your body―possibly stopping your heart or breathing―and down the other leg. Ground currents are especially dangerous to animals, such as cattle, because the current passes through the entire body between the front and rear legs. The greater the distance between where current enters and leaves a body, the more serious the damage.