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To: elmatador who wrote (25029)	11/5/2002 12:45:18 PM
From: Snowshoe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Brazil Lightning Bolts Set Shocking World Record story.news.yahoo.com 1 hour, 46 minutes ago RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Tropical Brazil is the country most struck by lightning in the world and it suffers the highest death toll and serious economic damage from electric thunderstorms, new research showed on Tuesday. Osmar Pinto, a researcher of Atmospheric Electricity Group with the Brazilian (news - web sites) Institute for Space Studies which mapped lightning incidence using satellite data, said the country was struck by 70 million lightning bolts a year, or between two and three electric discharges per second. "That is about double the amount of lightning in the United States, which is approximately the same size as Brazil," Pinto told Reuters. Brazil is the world's biggest tropical country, and electric thunderstorms are more common in the tropics. About 100 people die in Latin America's largest country after being hit by lightning bolts per year. The total makes up some 10 percent of all lightning-related deaths in the world. Thunderbolts also inflict up to $200 million in annual damage to power and telecommunications lines, other companies and private property. Pinto said 70 percent of frequent power blackouts across Brazil resulted from lightning. Mapping the areas with the highest incidence of atmospheric electricity discharges should help protect installations in the most-affected regions, he said.