Only a day after at least 300 wild reindeer were killed by a lightning strike in Norway, nature proved once again how terrifying it can really be.
News has emerged that 19 cows were killed by a single lightning strike in Hallsville, Texas, on Sunday night.
The cows had gathered under a tree to shelter from the impending storm when lightning struck the tree, The Independent reports.
Witness Victor Benson told KLTV:
All of a sudden, a lightning bolt came down and the cows just fell. In the blink of an eye a lightning bolt, and there was lightning everywhere, but just one (bolt) and it was over.
Their owner, Ashley Anderson, said she had never seen anything like it, and described the moment the storm wiped out about a third of her herd as a ‘freak’ incident.
Speaking to WSFA News, Ashley said:
It’s not something you see every day. Just kind of surreal to see it. It’s just a freak thing; I mean they were just staying out of the rain. There’s really, to my knowledge, nothing you can do to prevent this.
The dead animals were quickly removed from the field and were given to people for meat.
According to the Guinness Book of Records, the deadliest lightning strike involving livestock occurred in 2005, when 68 cows were killed in Australia.
