Lightning Kills Another Person In Volta Region

In the Volta Region’s Ketu North Municipality, another adolescent was struck by lightning and murdered.

This occurred two weeks after a similar occurrence in Ho claimed the life of Emmanuel Dorli, a 17-year-old kid.

This time, lightning struck and killed an 18-year-old pregnant woman at a site near Penyi-Atiagorme during a heavy downpour at about 2 p.m. on Wednesday [June 15, 2022].

When the rains began, Etornam Agbeke, the interim Municipal Director of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), said that she was hurrying home from the Penyi market to remove her grandmother’s clothes from the drying line.

He claimed the dead was struck by lightning as she approached a body of water and fell face-down into the water.

“Terrified witnesses were unwilling to go near the body, insisting that certain rituals needed to be performed before the body could be removed from the puddle,” said Mr. Ahorlu.

The occurrence instilled anxiety in the people, who were afraid to approach the body and felt that rites were required to please the gods.

When the victim’s husband arrived at the site to see if the victim was already dead and potentially revive her, he was blocked from doing so by local townspeople, he said.

The townspeople argued that the mourning husband’s actions would bring down the wrath of the Nogokpo gods.

On May 30, 2021, Emmanuel Dorli, a coconut seller in Ho, was struck by lightning and instantaneously killed under a mango tree near the regional offices of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) during a late afternoon rainstorm.

Later, he was identified as a Sokode Senior High Technical School student.

The lightning struck two female students who were strolling with the deceased and knocked them out.

They were taken to the Ho Municipal Hospital and treated before being released.

Before Dorli’s body could be transported away, several inhabitants in Ho asked that rites for the land’s deities be done.