Lightning strikes and schoolboy killed in Kadawatha
Though caution because of lightning has been continuously advised as a result of the weather accompanying lightning these days; it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. An unfortunate incident of this nature was reported day-before-yesterday from Kopiawatta, Kadawatha where a 17 year
old schoolboy was playing a video game from his mobile phone lying on his bed and had been struck by lightning and thus succumbed to death because of his sheer negligence. The incident had occured around 7 in the night day-before-yesterday (10) at a time when there had been a weather accompanied by a downpour of rain. The lightning accompanied by rain had struck the youngster who happened to be reclining on his bed operating his mobile phone and he had been jolted away shrieking in the process. In a short while his body stood still and he was found dead. The way in which the boy had got thrown off having been struck by lightning was witnessed even by his sister who was at that spot. The victim in this case is Nilanda Chamika of Kopiawattha, Kadawatha, a student of Kirillawela Maha Vidyalaya, Kadawatha. The elder sister of the victim, Supuni Dilrukshi had this to say over the incident: "Malli always had the phone in his hand ... he always has the phone connected to his ears. However much we advise him he never listened to us. Our father presented him this phone for the happiness of having malli passed the O/Ls. Even during rainy time he used to manipulate the phone. When this incident happened there wasn't much rain as such. But there was lightning. Malli was reclining on bed pressing buttons on the phone. He had plugged the phone charger saying that the charge was not full.
Just then at once we heard a terrible noise of a burst accompanied by lightning outside. Right then malli who was on bed shouted akke .. akke and instantly got thrown off like a bolt of lightning itself and then got up. He having got up and having walked a few feet, sat down on the floor. I also was close to him then. I sustained no damage. I then went towards malli who was seated and tapped his body saying malli .. malli. I shook malli's hands and he was motionless. His hands I noticed were like stone. He was in the same seated position as he was before and he appeared stiff. I yelled out. Shouting I came out of the house and ran to bring a three-wheeler. When I came back I found that somebody had taken him to hospital. He had died in the room itself. Because of this bolt of lightning the television in the house too had stopped functioning and what the police said was that this accident had occured because members of the house had not taken precautions in cases of lightning. Kadwatha Police have commenced investigations regarding the incident.