On 2 November 1994 a

lightning strike A lightning strike or lightning bolt is an electric discharge between the atmosphere and the ground. Most originate in a cumulonimbus cloud and terminate on the ground, called cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning. A less common type of strike, ground- ...

ignited three

diesel Diesel may refer to: * Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression * Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines * Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engin ...

and

aircraft fuel Aviation fuels are petroleum-based fuels, or petroleum and synthetic fuel blends, used to power aircraft. They have more stringent requirements than fuels used for ground use, such as heating and road transport, and contain additives to enhance ...

tanks belonging to the Egyptian Army strategic reserve near the village of

Dronka Durunka (, ), alternatively spelled Dronka, is an Upper Egyptian town, located on the west bank of the Nile, in the Asyut Governorate. History The Holy family visited Durunka on their flight into Egypt and the nearby monasteries at Dayr Durun ...

Asyut Governorate AsyutAlso spelled ''Assiout'' or ''Assiut'' ( ar, أسيوط ' , from ' ) is the capital of the modern Asyut Governorate in Egypt. It was built close to the ancient city of the same name, which is situated nearby. The modern city is located at , ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

. The lightning was part of a severe storm that caused heavy

flash flooding A flash flood is a rapid flooding of low-lying areas: washes, rivers, dry lakes and depressions. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a severe thunderstorm, hurricane, or tropical storm, or by meltwater from ice or snow flowing o ...

and widespread damage in four

governorates A governorate is an administrative division of a state. It is headed by a governor. As English-speaking nations tend to call regions administered by governors either State (administrative division), states or province, provinces, the term ''govern ...

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south. In ancient ...

leading to hundreds of deaths and thens of thousands of people made homeless in one of Egypt's worst urban disasters. The flooding compounded with the lightening strike meant flaming oil leaked from the tanks and was carried by floodwater into the village. More than 200 houses were destroyed and 469 people killed.

Floods and strike

On 2 November 1994, a five-hour

thunderstorm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are someti ...

led to

flash floods A flash flood is a rapid flooding of low-lying areas: washes, rivers, dry lakes and depressions. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a severe thunderstorm, hurricane, or tropical storm, or by meltwater from ice or snow flowing o ...

that affected 124 villages in the four

Asyut AsyutAlso spelled ''Assiout'' or ''Assiut'' ( ar, أسيوط ' , from ' ) is the capital of the modern Asyut Governorate in Egypt. It was built close to the ancient city of the same name, which is situated nearby. The modern city is located at , ...

Sohag Sohag ( , ), also spelled as ''Sawhāj'', ''Suhag'' and ''Suhaj'', is a city on the west bank of the Nile in Egypt. It has been the capital of Sohag Governorate since 1960, before which the capital was Girga and the name of the governorate was ...

Qena Qena ( ar, قنا ' , locally: ; cop, ⲕⲱⲛⲏ ''Konē'') is a city in Upper Egypt, and the capital of the Qena Governorate. Situated on the east bank of the Nile, it was known in antiquity as Kaine (Greek Καινή, meaning "new (city)"; ...

and

Luxor Luxor ( ar, الأقصر, al-ʾuqṣur, lit=the palaces) is a modern city in Upper (southern) Egypt which includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of ''Thebes''. Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-a ...

. Near the village of Dronka, Asyut, the flooding of a Western Desert

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion.lightning Lightning is a naturally occurring electrostatic discharge during which two electric charge, electrically charged regions, both in the atmosphere or with one on the land, ground, temporarily neutralize themselves, causing the instantaneous ...

strike that hit a point of elevation at near Dronka, which was near a complex of eight oil tanks maintained by the

Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation The Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) ( ar, الهيئة المصرية العامة للبترول) is a national oil company of Egypt. EGPC's business includes crude oil exploration, refining, and storage. The company also produces l ...

as a

strategic reserve A strategic reserve is the reserve of a commodity or items that is held back from normal use by governments, organisations, or businesses in pursuance of a particular strategy or to cope with unexpected events. A document issued by the US Departm ...

for the Egyptian Army. The tanks were spaced around apart and three of them caught fire. Around of oil leaked from the tanks; there was no bund wall or any secondary confinement in place to contain the oil, which mixed with floodwaters that were being held back by a nearby railway line. The line collapsed, and the water and flaming oil washed into Dronka, a village of 10,000 people.

Effects

Reports from the flooding in the four governorates show a total of almost 600 people were killed, and 11,148 houses destroyed and a further 11,085 damaged making 110,660 people homeless. 23,531 feddans (Approx. 12,000 HA) of agricultural land were devastaed, and total damage exceeded $140 million. An Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population report noted that 469 bodies were recovered from the village of Dronka alone, and the

World Meteorological Organization The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. The WMO originated from the Internati ...

(WMO) considers this figure to be the death toll. More than 200 houses in Dronka were destroyed and 20,000 residents of the village and surrounding area fled to Assiut. One of the tanks remained ablaze into the night as firefighters decided it was best to let it burn out; there were fears it could ignite some of the surviving five oil tanks. The governor of Assiut declared a state of emergency due to the storm and lightning strike. The WMO attributes the death toll of 469 to the lightning strike and notes the disaster is the highest mortality event as a result of a lightning strike on record (dating back to 1873). The highest death toll directly caused by a single lightning strike is 21 people killed while sheltering in a hut in

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

in 1975.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dronka lightning strike, 1994 1994 disasters in Africa 1994 in Egypt 1994 fires in Africa 1994 floods 1994 meteorology Asyut Governorate Fires in Egypt Lightning November 1994 events in Africa