Lightning!!

Some interesting storiesfacts about lightning that I read in The Star today..


Ammunition explosion

On July 10, 1926, lightning struck the Navy Ammunition Depot near Mount Hope, New Jersey, United States. Millions of pounds of TNT were ignited, resulting in three explosions. Nineteen people died and 38 were wounded.

Lansa Flight disaster

On Dec 24, 1971, Lansa Flight 508 with 92 people departed Lima for Peru. A lightning strike ignited the fuel tank on the right wing, and the plane disintegrated.

Pan American tragedy

On Dec 8, 1963, Pan Am Flight 214 took off from Puerto Rico to Philadelphia with 73 passengers and 8 crew members. As the aeroplane waited in a holding pattern prior to landing, lightning struck, igniting the vapours in its reserve tanks, causing the plane to explode. Nobody survived.

(Note: Following the disaster, aviation regulations have made it mandatory for commercial aircraft to have built-in lightning protection for their fuel tanks and lines and, since the 1980s, for electrical and electronic systems as well.)

Football team killed

All 11 members of a football team died after lightning struck and 30 others injured during a match in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Oct 28, 1998. The other team survived, which led the superstitious Congalese to speculate that black magic was involved.

Massive blackout

Lightning struck the electrical power grid near Paka, Terengganu, on Sept 29, 1992, causing a near total blackout in the Peninsula – 80% of the population was left without power for 33 hours.

Death camp

Two hikers are killed and another 22 are injured at Gunung Rajah, near Bentong, Pahang, on May 3, 2004. The group were camping on the peak when lightning struck a tree nearby.

Train collision

At least 43 people were injured when two KTM Komuter trains collided near Seremban on March 2, 2004. A power surge from lightning paralysed the electronic signalling and communication systems, rendering KTM controllers “blind”.

Wrong shelter

Teenager Hezrill Remmy Ng was killed by lightning on May 26, 2006. He had taken cover in a small zinc-roofed shelter at a park in USJ 16, Subang Jaya. This drew public attention to the dangers of such council-bult gazebos.

Depot inferno

Lightning struck a 90,000 litre petrol tank at the Petronas Dagangan depot at the Pasir Gudang port, Johor, on April 28, 2006. The fire, which spread to two other tanks, could be seen from Singapore.

Soldiers hit

On Nov 21, 2008, 43 soldiers from the Royal Malay Regiment were shocked when they were sheltering in a tent on a hill clearing near Kota Belud, Sabah, when lightning struck. An army officer was killed and seven others were injured.

Today, I learnt that changing the arrangement of your room/house really changes the way your room/house looks.

(And I learnt that lightnings are really dangerous).

When There Is Lightning

One of the main topics that people generally talk about is the weather. Among family, friends or even strangers. My Dad, whenever he smses me give me a weather update of his place - 'it's very hot today' or 'it rained today'.

Recently, the weather in Malaysia has been rather chaotic - hot as hell at one minute, and raining at the next. As I've more or less quit reading the newspaper and don't watch the news, I got to know last weekend (when I went back home) that there have been quite a number of landslides at Kuala Pilah due to the extremely heavy rain and strong wind.

Ipoh too has had it's share of funny weather. We had very bad rain yesterday and the day before yesterday. Both times, the rain started and stopped abruptly, but when it rained, it rained like the Gods were angry. A few places even got flooded after that short period of rainfall!

Yesterday's rain was accompanied by thunder and lightning, which reminded me of something that happened a long time ago.

I was 6 years old. I was staying with my cousins in Seremban, going to a kindergarden nearby. My parents would come visit me during the weekends and I would go back home during the holidays. I was the youngest among my cousins and I don't remember much, but then I do remember getting teased every now and then - happens to everyone, doesn't it?.

One of the things that my cousins told me was this - when lightning strikes, it always strikes the eldest child of the family (if the person is outdoors). I believed them, and being the eldest in my family, I would avoid going out of the house whenever there was lightning.

I have another Aunt who lived 2 doors away from the house I was living in. I used to go there almost every day to practice the piano since there wasn't a piano in the Seremban house (which is how we refer to the house we lived in last time).

As luck would have it, one day, after practising the piano, before I went back to the Seremban house, it started to rain + thunder + lighting. I was TERRIFIED!! What if I got struck by lightning? I can't stay in my Aunt's house because I had to go to kindergarden the next day and it was already late at night. Of course I did not mention this fear to my Aunt or my cousins - I didn't want anyone to laugh at me.

In the end, my Aunt decided that it was too dark for me to go back alone and told one of my cousin brother's to accompany me back home. I felt such relief when I saw that the cousin who is going to send me back is the eldest one in his family; my reasoning was this - since he is the eldest in the family and since he is older than me, then he is bound to get struck by lightning first. Inconsiderate, I know, but I was 6 years old!

Anyway, both of us managed to get to our respective homes safely without being struck by lightning. I don't know when I managed to get that 'eldest child usually gets struck by lighting' idea out of my head, but then I don't think I will ever forget that particular day. It's not like I have a good memory (my friends can tell you how bad I am at remembering stuff), but somehow, this incident got stuck in my brain.

In case you were wondering - no, it didn't rain in Ipoh today.