Lightning Incident Database Country Directory

THIS DATABASE HAS BECOME THE LARGEST PUBLICLY AVAILABLE DATABASE OF LIGHTNING INCIDENTS IN THE WORLD with information on 46 of the 54 countries in Africa. 

Select a country to find maps and news reports organized by year. Expect countries with small populations to have few reports.

Note - do not be surprised by occasional 'duplicates.' Details included on incidents may vary by source and all may be useful to researchers, so we may include more than one report. You are welcome to use it for research purposes, as long as you cite this database in any report. To raise awareness further, all news reports are posted to ACLENet's social media accounts.

Countries for which we have found no injury reports

There are many reasons these countries may have no reports that we have been able to find:

1.  Little or no lightning - so no exposure

2.  The press is not stable due to civil unrest, poor connectivity and electrical supply, poor economy, illiteracy, or other factors that would inhibit media coverage.

3.  Cultural beliefs may prevent reporting - such as the belief that talking about lightning will cause it to come down on themselves or to injure their families so that incidents are not reported.

As we have reports, we will make full pages for these countries as we have for those above. For now, we will publish the Global Lightning Detection lightning flash density maps and build out the pages as we have time.

Research is only one of the reasons we post these reports for free use. News reports are valuable in learning who is most vulnerable, what they were doing when injured, their age, and other pertinent data that can help ACLENet, lightning safety advocates, and the governments of each country target 'lightning injury hotspots' or groups most in need of lightning safety information, lightning protection systems, education, and other preventive measures.  

News reports of injuries, deaths, and property damage are collected by our staff in English and in many other languages by volunteers are posted monthly to the pages of the countries where the incidents occurred. Additionally, Citizen Volunteers regularly send us information on incidents and often translate them from tribal language media sources. If you hear of incidents that should be included, please send us a report and photos, if possible. Also send us the URL if it was published online. After verification, we'll add them to the database. Thank you for your assistance.