Separate lightning strikes killed three women in the same region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, after torrential rains began, a local chief said on Tuesday.
A 26-year-old cook at a convent in the Tshimbulu district died in hospital after being struck by lightning on Friday, chief Laudes Nkashama told AFP.
A second woman was killed at her home in Tshidimba, five kilometres from Tshimbulu, and a third perished in her fields at Kazadi 12 kilometres distant, the chief added.
Tshimbulu lies 112 kilometres (69 miles) east of Kananga, the capital of Kasai Occidental province.
"At the beginning and end of the rainy season, we know such things happen, sometimes accompanied by major material damage" to crops or property, Nkashama said. Rain in the DR Congo is often accompanied by lightning.
Local superstition holds that death by lightning is sometimes supernatural vengeance to settle old scores.
In April 2008, 13 people, including several children, were killed during the rainy season in Kasai Occidental, when the storms also swept away the walls of their homes. - Sapa-AFP
Published on the Web by IOL on 2009-09-22 13:53:22
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