Lightning rods keep students safe

When the sky grows dark over Lalmonirhat's Hatibandha upazila, the familiar crash of thunder brings with it the potentially fatal threat of lightning strikes. To minimise the risk to students, non-government organisation SKS Foundation has recently installed lightning rods at 21 primary and four high schools in Teesta River shoal and other vulnerable areas of Dawabar and Sindurna unions. Students and staff are feeling safer, better prepared to face any storm.

“Now that we have a lightning rod at our school we can study and play safely even during thunderstorms,” says Moly Akhter, a class-five student of Pathenerhat Government Primary School.

“We used to be so afraid during storms that our lessons would stop,” adds her classmate Rabiul Islam, “but not anymore.”

Funded by Plan International Bangladesh, each bronze lightning rod is eighty feet long, around half of which sits below ground while the remaining forty feet reaches into open sky to attract lightning bolts before they reach areas of human activity. Each rod costs around Tk 30,000 to install.

“Our students aren't nervous about thunderstorms anymore,” says Pathenerhat's head teacher Nazma Begum. “The lightning rod was set up about a year ago and since then the students feel safe.”

“It doesn't cost much to install a lightning rod,” says Anisur Rahman, the head teacher of nearby Lokman Hossain High School, which has also participated in the Safe School project. “But the benefits are potentially life-saving. Besides that, our students have been trained on how to protect themselves during all kinds of disasters.”

“Each lightning rod offers protection for a radius of around forty metres,” the Rangpur Divisional Manager of Plan Internation Bangladesh, Abdul Quddus explains. “That means that people living in houses adjacent to schools are also protected. We want to install more lightning rods in the future to protect more schools.”

“Luckily I live near a school where a lightning rod has been set up,” says Mazidul Islam, 54, a resident of Sindurna shoal in Hatibandha. “It makes me feel safer during storms.”

“I hope the government can take steps to install lightning rods at all vulnerable schools,” says Lalmonirhat's district primary education officer, Nabez Uddin Sarker.