Since the study was authored by brazilians who only used data from brazil, it's hard to tell if the fatalities were enabled by the brazilian electrical system and would not happen elsewhere. Especially given that 4/5 were in rural areas.
My guess is that Brazil’s infrastructure is not that different from other countries, since they run a 60Hz grid I’d imagine they use the system introduced by Edison’s company General Electric.
Look around on the Internet and you'll definitely see how a lot of electrical systems in Brazil are not quite up to North American standards. Grounding is part of it.
typically phone chargers aren't grounded, so probably not relevant? lightning travels through the ground, so i'd expect the ground wires to be rather dangerous. also, neutral is bonded to ground at the meter (at least here)... so also not good?
Neutral bonding to ground is definitely not how it is done everywhere. A proper ground according to modern standards will have a true grounding rod that the buildings ground wiring is connected. Of course wiring predating those standards are a mix of how they are handled. Some older wiring used the buildings metal plumbing as ground which is why people say not to shower during an electrical storm.
