Bolt from the blue: Lightning kills shepherd, two sons

MUZAFFARABAD: A shepherd and his two sons were killed after lightning struck them in Jhelum Valley forest, some 30 kilometres from Muzaffarabad, police said on Sunday.

“The shepherd Raj Muhammad, his two young sons Maqsood and Sharif and their 12 cattle heads died when lightning struck them in a grazing field,” SHO Ghari Dupata police station Raja Ansar told the Express Tribune. In another incident two men drowned in River Jhelum near Ambore Kashmiri Refugees Camp, on the suburb of Muzaffarabad, police officials said.

Heavy rains going on since Saturday in the upper parts of Azad Kashmir have raised the water level of River Neelum and River Jhelum by five to seven feet, Met officials said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 27^th, 2013.