Five children killed in lightning strike

At least five children were killed by lightning while playing cricket on a school pitch near the northern Bangladesh town of Gafargaon.

The children, aged between nine and ten, were killed instantly when lightning struck the pitch at Makhal Kaldhair, a village about 100km from Dhaka.

"Among the dead were two brothers," explained local police chief Abdur Rashid Shikder. "Other kids who were playing the cricket match late Sunday afternoon were unhurt but were very shocked to see their friends dead on the ground."

Lightning kills dozens of people in rural Bangladesh every year during the early summer and monsoon periods when storms sweep in from the Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh`s Daily Star said that another storm at the weekend hit 45 villages and tore down 1,500 houses, uprooted 2,000 trees and damaged about 2,000 acres of farmland.