“Global warming, environmental changes, living patterns are all factors for the increasing death toll due to lightning,” Md Mijanur Rahman, the director general of Bangladesh’s disaster management division, told the BBC.

Such is the seriousness, that the government has added lightning strikes to the official list of natural disasters the country faces which includes floods, cyclones, earthquakes and droughts.

Now, draped over the wooden barrier, the Barcelona football shirt is singed and frayed, the burnt edges of thread show where the lightning left its mark in May this year.

Back at Rehana’s house, the rice Abdullah harvested a day earlier lies in fresh piles outside the small one-room dwelling.

Activists say more tall trees need to be planted in remote rural areas to absorb the impact of the strikes, especially in places which have borne the brunt of deforestation.

They also call for a large-scale programme to build lightning sheds, so farmers can take safe shelter, and for broader early warning systems to alert people about possible storms.

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