BHUBANESWAR: Natural calamities have claimed 1,152 lives during the last three years.Lightning has taken the maximum toll of 821 lives followed by 251 sunstroke deaths. The flood casualty during the period was 80, Revenue and Disaster Management Minister SN Patro told mediapersons after the State-level natural calamity committee meeting here.Prone to natural calamities like flood, untimely rain, drought, hailstorm and thunder shower and lightning, 230 people died of lightning in 2010 followed by 229 casualties due to thunderbolt in 2009. The Minister said that 362 people died of lightning in 2008 adding, as many as 38 persons were killed in lightning by May 25 this year.According to official figures, 98 persons died of sunstroke in 2010, while the human casualty in the natural calamity was 85 in 2009 and 68 in 2008. Though unofficial figures put the heatstroke casualty at more tan 30, only six of them were recognised by the Government.The Minister, however, claimed that human casualty due to flood and heatstroke were contained due to timely intervention.At least 10 persons died in the flood in 2010 which claimed 56 lives in 2009. Similarly, 14 persons were killed in the 2008 floods while 87 died in the calamity that hit the State in four different phases.
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