One man was killed and several people, including children, were injured today as lightning strikes hit parts of Europe, including a park in Paris and a football pitch in Germany.
In southern Poland a man in his forties was killed when he was struck by lightning as he descended the Babia Gora mountain, local media said.
Three others were injured by lighting in the region while a 61-year-old man drowned in floodwaters, according to TVN24 television and PAP news agency.
In Germany, more than 30 people were taken to hospital in the western village of Hoppstaedten when lightning struck the pitch at the end of a children's football match.
Most of those affected were children, who were taken to hospital as a precaution and were found to be unharmed.
However three adults were seriously injured including the 45-year-old referee who was hit directly and had to be resuscitated before being rushed to hospital by helicopter.
In Paris, 11 people, eight of them children, were injured when lightning struck as they were celebrating a birthday party in Parc Monceau in the city's northwest.
Professor Pierre Carli, director of Necker hospital in Paris, said later that only one child was in a very serious condition and had required resuscitation.
All the children at the party were aged between seven and eight years old.
Paris fire service spokesman Eric Moulin said the group had rushed under a tree to shelter when it began to rain.
"It was while they were heading for shelter, when they were still near a tree, that the lightning fell," Moulin said.
Witnesses to the German lightning strike said it happened without warning.
"There was no rain and the sky wasn't dark," a police spokesman told DPA.
Twenty-nine children aged between nine and 11 were taken to hospital for tests, where they were given the all-clear, a police spokeswoman told AFP.
In Paris, fire service spokesman Moulin said it was an off-duty firefighter who had given the first aid, after hearing the commotion and rushing to help.
