Lightning kills 13 worshippers in Bangladesh mosque

Dhaka: Lightning inside a village mosque in northeastern Bangladesh overnight killed 13 and injured 15 other worshippers as they were offering prayers in a congregation, reports and officials said today.

“Lightning struck them just after they completed offering Taraweeh prayers and were coming out of the makeshift mosque [at Dharmapasha area of Sunamganj district],” a police official told Gulf News.

The reports said 10 people were killed instantly while three others died overnight at a local hospital where some 15 were being treated, some of them with critical wounds.

Police said the lightning struck the tin-roofed makeshift mosque as a storm accompanied by thunderbolts lashed the neighbourhood at the remote frontier village where waterway is the only means of communication with Dharmapasha sub-district and Sunamganj district.

“It takes one at least three hours to reach the village from the nearest town of Dharmapasha . . . the injured were brought to the town in boats overnight with burn injuries,” a local village leader told the Prothom Alo newspaper.