At least 16 people were killed and many others injured, including the groom, when several lightning bolts have hit a wedding party in Bangladesh within few seconds.
Sakib Al-Rabby, a government administrator for the town, told that the group had just left a boat at the riverside town of Shibganj to take shelter from the thunderstorm when the lightning struck. The bride was not with the wedding party when several bolts struck within a few seconds of each other in the western district of Chapainawabganj, he added.
Lightning kills hundreds of people in the South Asian nation each year. According to an official tally, there were more than 200 lightning deaths in 2016, with 82 people dying on a single day in May.
However, many deaths are never officially recorded as one independent monitor counted at least 349 deaths from lightning strikes.
Some experts have pointed to deforestation as the reason behind the increasing death toll. To ease the impact of climate change and reduce the number of lightning deaths, Bangladesh has planted hundreds of thousands of palm trees.
