Lightning strikes 19 cows in Texas, 3rd herd killed in a week

Screen Grab from Facebook/Moody County Sheriff’s Office

A bolt of lightning killed a herd of 19 cows on Monday night (Tuesday in Manila) in Hallsville, Texas, USA.

The cattle, which were sheltering under a tree during a storm, became the third herd of animals in a week to be electrocuted by a freak lightning accident.

“All of a sudden, a lightning bolt came down and the cows just fell,” witness Victor Benson said in a Telegraph report.  “In the blink of an eye a lightning bolt, and there was lightning everywhere, but just one (bolt) and it was over.”

Benson added that some of the cows survived the hit and managed to get up and stumble away, but most were killed outright.

The herd’s owner, Ashley Anderson, meanwhile, described the incident as “surreal.”

“It’s just a freak thing, I mean they were just staying out of the rain,” she said. “There’s really, to my knowledge, nothing you can do to prevent this.”

The dead animals were given to neighbors for meat, while a mark remains on the tree where the bolt hit, the report said. The grotesque incident resulted in a total loss of $45,000 (P2.1 million) for Anderson.

The latest misfortune comes just a day after hundreds of reindeer were wiped out during a storm in the Hardangervidda region of Norway.

READ: More than 300 reindeer killed by lightning in Norway

Thirty-eight sheep were also electrocuted during a storm in India last week.  Khristian Ibarrola