On 2 November 1994 a

lightning strike A lightning strike or lightning bolt is a lightning event in which an electric discharge takes place between the atmosphere and the ground. Most originate in a cumulonimbus cloud and terminate on the ground, called cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning ...

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 engine ...

and

aircraft fuel An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, in a few cases, direct downward thrust from its en ...

tanks belonging to the

Egyptian Army The Egyptian Army (), officially the Egyptian Ground Forces (), is the land warfare branch (and largest service branch) of the Egyptian Armed Forces. Until the declaration of the Republic and the abolishment of the monarchy on 18 June 1953, it w ...

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 Holy Family, The Holy family visited Durunka on their flight into Egypt and the nearby monasteries a ...

Asyut Governorate Asyūṭ () is one of the 27 governorates of Egypt. It stretches across a section of the Nile River. The capital of the governorate is the city of Asyut. Etymology The name of Asyut is derived from early Egyptian ''Zawty'' (''Z3JW.TJ''), late E ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. 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 and snow. Flash flo ...

and widespread damage in four

governorates A governorate or governate is an administrative division headed by a governor. As English-speaking nations tend to call regions administered by governors either states or provinces, the term ''governorate'' is typically used to calque divisions o ...

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ', shortened to , , locally: ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the Nile River valley south of the delta and the 30th parallel North. It thus consists of the entire Nile River valley from Cairo south to Lake N ...

leading to hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands of people made homeless in one of Egypt's worst urban disasters. The flooding compounded with the lightning 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 acoustics, acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorm ...

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 and snow. Flash fl ...

that affected 124 villages in the four

Asyut AsyutAlso spelled ''Assiout'' or ''Assiut''. ( ' ) 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 , while the ancient city i ...

Sohag Sohag (, , ), also spelled as Suhag or 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 Girga Governorate. I ...

Qena Qena ( ' , locally: ) 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)"; Latinized transliteration: Caene) and ...

and

Luxor Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt. Luxor had a population of 263,109 in 2020, with an area of approximately and is the capital of the Luxor Governorate. It is among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited c ...

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

Western Desert In Egypt, the Western Desert is an area of the Sahara that lies west of the river Nile, up to the Libyan border, and south from the Mediterranean Sea to the border with Sudan. It is named in contrast to the Eastern Desert which extends east fro ...

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. Ravines may also be called a cleuch, dell, ...

coincided with a

lightning Lightning is a natural phenomenon consisting of electrostatic discharges occurring through the atmosphere between two electrically charged regions. One or both regions are within the atmosphere, with the second region sometimes occurring on ...

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) () is a national oil company of Egypt. EGPC's business includes crude oil exploration, refining, and storage. The company also produces lubricants and greases and offers services for oil and gas p ...

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. There are several national and inte ...

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. In addition, 23,531

feddans A feddan () is a unit of area used in Egypt, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Oman. In Classical Arabic, the word means 'a yoke of oxen', implying the area of ground that could be tilled by oxen in a certain time. In Egypt, the feddan is the only ...

(approx. 12,000ha) of

agricultural land Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other organism, forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous ...

were devastated, and total damage exceeded $140 million. The losses were concentrated in the village of Dronka, Asyut, where the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population report noted that 469 bodies were recovered from there alone, and the

World Meteorological Organization The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology an ...

(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

Rhodesia Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...

(now

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

) in 1975.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dronka lightning strike, 1994 1994 in Egypt 1994 disasters in Africa 1994 fires 20th-century fires in Africa 20th-century floods in Africa 1994 floods 1994 meteorology Asyut Governorate Fires in Egypt Lightning November 1994 in Egypt