The group of farm animals were simply seeking shelter during a thunderstorm. They chose the wrong place.
Dozens of sheep and goats were killed by a single lightning strike as they nestled under a tree in Myanmar’s Magwe region on Thursday, the Global New Light of Myanmar reports.
Owners Hla Maung Htay and Thein Htun, from Daw Thar village, returned to their fields after the strike, at around 8:30am, to find a gruesome scene.
Dozens of goats and sheep, worth more than $2,000, lay dead on the ground.
They were buried under the orders of local authorities.
It’s common for animals to huddle together under trees in bad weather. When lightning strikes a tree, the electrical current can spread along the ground and gets absorbed by anyone close by. Reports of groups of 10 to 20 animals killed during storms are not unusual.
The scale of Thursday’s carnage, however, recalled the macabre pictures of 323 reindeer who died under similar circumstances in Norway last month.
R.I.P.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this post incorrectly listed the number of goats and sheep killed as 51 and 21. Which adds up to 72, not 63. We regret the error. (As does our maths teacher.)
