Uganda Lightning Kills 18 Students, Teacher After Striking School

KAMPALA, Uganda — Ugandan officials say 22 students and a teacher died after lightning struck their school in the country's midwest.

Local police spokeswoman Zura Ganyana said Wednesday that 51 students between the ages of 7 and 16 were injured Tuesday. She said the teacher who died was visiting the Runyanya primary school, about 160 miles (some 260 kilometers) west of Uganda's capital.

Zombo education official John Ojobi says another school 200 miles (some 320 kilometers) northwest of Kampala was also hit by lightning Tuesday, injuring 37 students and two teachers.

Meteorology experts say school buildings are being hit because they don't have lightning conductors and are built on high ground.

In the past few weeks, lightning strikes around the country have killed at least 34 people.

Comments

[ramblingjohnny]

02:38 AM on 06/30/2011

What the hell folk how hard is it to install a lightning rod on the roof of a school?

[mamacat]

05:35 AM on 06/30/2011

With a GDP of less than $600 per person per year, they don't have money for much of anything.

[ramblingjohnny]

06:51 AM on 06/30/2011

It a freaking rod made out of metal that grounded! You can build one out of almost any scrap you can find. Seriously poverty is no excuse in this case.

[Dragontech]

01:45 AM on 06/30/2011

Damn, talk about dying to learn! Terrible that the desire to learn, to get out of poverty comes with the price tag of being a target of lightning storms because someone decided to put schools on elevations without protection. That's just criminal.

[AmigaMan]

07:27 PM on 06/29/2011

My God... Those poor kids and the teacher. :(

[AMlegion]

04:21 PM on 06/29/2011

Tragic news. How could you go to school with that on your chest. poor kids.

[claudioc]

01:54 PM on 06/29/2011

WOW I just read all of your comments and some of you are rediculouse blaming this trgedy on their feelings about gays lightning is a natural phenomana and its rare to get struck by it we should be concerned about the frequency of these stikes and teach them about lightning safety not bash them for being anti-gay

[AMlegion]

04:24 PM on 06/29/2011

Right on. Its innocent kids here. Trying to better themselves by being in school. I don't know what some of these peoples problems are.

[redsoxpagan]

01:52 PM on 06/29/2011

Lightening rods are some of the easiest things to make (they've been around since the late 1700's, it's not rocket science.) This is a tragedy that didn't need to happen, but what do you expect from a dictatorship?

[Freenation]

01:12 PM on 06/29/2011

Tragic

[compajuan049]

01:00 PM on 06/29/2011

But the country IS already a dictatorship (same leader since the late 80's) though at least they are not as bad as Somalia, though the average libyan earned about twice the annual income of the average Ugandan and unemployment in Uganda is almost half it's workforce, yet Libya and Egypt are the ones with the rioting and instability ., Go figure!

[blogger x]

01:43 PM on 06/29/2011

Did you ever wonder that the changes in Libya and Egypt might be due to outside forces looking to reshape the region for western hegemony?

[kate91705]

12:41 PM on 06/29/2011

So my post on the other story of the kids getting struck by lightening was slammed b/c someone wanted to blame the kids for being outside during a ligthening storm. Are you going to blame them for being in school now too?

[Patroclus]

12:21 PM on 06/29/2011

Uganda is more concerned with killing gays than it is with providing safe structures for its schools.

[blogger x]

01:40 PM on 06/29/2011

Touching comment, truly.

[juzcuz]

12:11 PM on 06/29/2011

Isn't Uganda the country that thinks they should kill gays & lesbians for being who they were born as? If so, lightening could be just the start of their wake up call - - that their hate & bigotry is NOT where it's at. They have hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis and earthquakes in Uganda?? If not yet, their weather map might be a'changing!

[glace]

01:20 PM on 06/29/2011

"lightening could be just the start of their wake up call - - that their hate & bigotry is NOT where it's at."

And still you're making the same analogy that "some" anti-gay people would make. "Some" would blame gays for such a tragedy, and "you" blame a whole population for this unfortunate tragedy.
At the end it does not make you no different, because 18 innocent KIDS did die, and this is how you react? What kind of world is this? People are so focused on revenge that they don't see the innocents in between.

[Tanrioldu]

01:33 PM on 06/29/2011

talk about ignorance.

Uganda is a landlocked country in the middle of the African continent. They will never have hurricanes or tsunamis.

Also, this is the 21st century... do you REALLY still believe that weather events such as storms and tornados, or geological phenomena like earthquakes are caused by human 'immoral' actions?

You are as ridiculous as Pat Robertson claiming that hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans because they let Ellen DeGeneres host the Oscar...

[DogWoodDaze]

07:50 PM on 06/29/2011

You made me laugh at the end of a hard day. Thank you.

[compajuan049]

11:57 AM on 06/29/2011

It's a horrific natural phenomena, but so many dead in a few days., more common sense is needed for peace of mind in such tropical regions where thunder and lightning are., uh, huh., the norm..,

[abcanchorttd]

11:48 AM on 06/29/2011

ABC Report Uganda Lightning Kills 18 Students.. 2 Badly Injured http://tinyurl.com/6arsf74

[abuckley23]

11:43 AM on 06/29/2011

I made a joke about it yesterday but two lightning strike articles in two days is pretty crazy. Maybe they should consider not housing their children inside large super conducting structures?

[LogicalMathMan]

11:41 AM on 06/29/2011

A very tragic event and one that could have been easily avoided. Most buildings in developing nations do not have building codes for mitigating lightning strikes. Often, all it takes is to run an iron strip from the tallest part of the building into the ground.

RIP!

[Larry Motuz]

11:49 AM on 06/29/2011

Even a heavy link chain to and into the ground will do in a pinch.