Man dies, several injured after lightning strikes hit Europe

Bolt of lightning kills man in Poland, several people, including children, injured as bout of unstable weather in Europe sees summer storms hit across continent

Firefighters were deployed to a park in north-west Paris after 11 people, including eight children, were injured by a lightning bolt
Firefighters were deployed to a park in north-west Paris after 11 people, including eight children, were injured by a lightning bolt

One man died and scores of people were injured, including children, as lighting strikes hit several parts of Europe, including a park in Paris and a football pitch in Germany.

A bolt of lightning killed a man hiking in the mountains in south-west Poland on Saturday. Storm lightning injured three others in the same region, and a 61-year-old man drowned in flash flooding.

In Germany, more than 30 taken to hospital in the western village of Hoppstädten when lightning struck at the end of a junior football match. The referee and two other adults were seriously injured, with the referee having to be resuscitated and airlifted to hospital after being hit directly.

11 people, including eight children, were injured when lightning struck as they were celebrating a birthday party in a park in north-west Paris. The children, aged between seven and eight years old, took shelter beneath a tree when the storm broke. The French Interior ministry said six suffered serious injuries while a one child remained in a serious condition.

Officials said the situation would have been much worse if an off-duty firefighter, Pascal Gremillot, who happened to be close by, had not been able to quickly administer first aid and heart massages. Eric Moulin, Paris fire service spokesman, said the group had rushed under a tree to shelter when it began to rain. “It was while they were heading for shelter, when they were still near a tree, that the lightning fell,” he said.

Michel Daloz of weather agency Meteo-France said that between 100 and 200 people are struck by lightning every year in the country, killing between 10 and 20 people. Storm alerts had been issued for several regions across France on Saturday, warning of the possibility of violent weather – but Paris was not on the list.

Weather experts said the storms were the result of a very “unstable” atmosphere over mainland north-west Europe. At the same time the air higher up in the atmosphere was becoming colder, creating a very “unstable” atmosphere.

Further storms are forecast over south and east Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland on Sunday.