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Global

Four Poles killed in freak lightning strike


    WARSAW (Reuters) - Four Poles were killed when they were struck by lightning as they trekked across southern Poland's Pieniny Mountains near the Slovak border, local media reported on Saturday.

    The bodies of a man and woman from Warsaw, both 50, were found on Friday along with the corpse of their daughter and that of her fiance, both 22, near a ravine a mere several hundred yards from their hostel.

    "It is extremely rare for a single bolt of lightning to kill four people," said Mariusz Zarod, a mountain rescue official.

    Polish and Slovak rescuers had used tracker dogs and helicopters to look for the group after it went missing on Wednesday.

    Witnesses said an unusually violent thunderstorm punctuated by multiple lightning strikes had raged in the area where the bodies were found.

    (Reporting by Rob Strybel; Editing by Andrew Osborn)