What is the awesome thing you can teach me?

A few days back, there was a cyclone in Kolkata and that was accompanied by a thunderstorm. Due to the lightning strikes, one of our televisions got damaged, as told by the mechanic. Our mistake was that we had the TV plugged into the power socket during the lightning strike. It cost me 4,000 rupees to get the TV repaired but if I had done a very small thing, the TV could have been saved from damage.

Let me tell you why this happened and this can happen with any electrical device present in your house and not just televisions. A lightning strike brings a surge of high voltage. Since it travels at a very fast pace, the high voltage creates a rapidly moving electromagnetic field around it. This electromagnetic field can cause electric discharge in electronic appliances that are present in it. In some cases, it may spark a fire too!

There's a very easy solution to this. When you see there's a thunderstorm, remove the power plug from the socket of the electrical devices. ACs, TVs, WiFi Routers, Mobile Chargers or anything that is connected to the power socket needs to be disconnected. Turning off the switch is not enough. If you have an MCB for your switchboard, tripping the MCB works too. That way, the electromagnetic field created won't be able to affect any electrical devices.