A man has been killed by a bolt of lightning that accompanied a tornado in southern Burma’s Rangoon division.
Six others injured when the tornado swept through Kawhmu township on Thursday last week. Another man in nearby Htantabin village was hospitalised after being sucked up by the tornado.
“He was pulled into the sky and landed somewhere else,” said a Htantabin resident. “He didn’t die but was hospitalised with serious injuries.”
The victim of the lightening strike is believed to be in his mid-twenties, and reportedly died on the spot. A Kawhmu resident said that a number of huts and houses in the surrounding villages were destroyed by the tornado.
“It came roaring down like an elephant’s trunk around 9pm or 10pm in the evening,” he said. “[In Taminchan village], 70 of around 100 houses were destroyed and six people were hospitalised. The wind just pulled the houses from their places.”
Rangoon division is still recovering from cyclone Nargis in May 2008, which killed 140,000 and destroyed swathes of farmland and property.