Lightning in Zimbabwe Kills 15 in Single Day

Fifteen people were killed by lightning in different parts of Zimbabwe on Sunday, the worst day yet of a rainy season in which a record 132 people have died from lightning bolts, police reported Wednesday.

A police spokesman said that all of Sunday’s victims, including one family of five, were sleeping in huts in remote rural areas when their homes were struck as heavy storms swept across the country. Many thatch huts in rural areas are made with a metal cone on their rounded roofs, making them vulnerable to lightning.

Zimbabwe gets most of its September-April rains from violent electrical storms. The present rainy season has been one of the wettest ever after three years of drought.