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Photo: NNI

Photo: NNI


The Inertia

Santa’s nightmare happened in Norway this weekend when a wayward lightning strike killed 323 reindeer. Seventy of the reindeer were calves making this one of the deadliest lightning strikes in history.

“We’ve heard about animals being struck by lightning and killed, but I don’t remember hearing about lightning killing animals on this scale before,” Norwegian Nature Inpectorate spokesman Knut Nylend said. “We don’t know if it was one or more lighting strike; that would only be speculation.”

The animals were discovered near Hardangervidda in the southern part of the country. Nylend also said that the animals could have been close together: “they may have gathered even closer together out of fear.” In 2005, 61 cows were killed by lightning in Australia and in 1971, 91 people were killed when a Peruvian plane was struck by lightning and crashed over the Amazon.

 
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