Lightning strikes children during unusually heavy storm in Moscow

A storm with heavy rain and flashes of lightning struck Moscow on Friday afternoon, July 13^th. The storm led to casualties and flooded many streets in different parts of Moscow.

In the north-west of Moscow, two children were struck by lightning, both were hospitalized, one in serious condition. The incident occurred in Strogino, near the Moscow River in a forested area, ITAR-TASS reported.

Interfax later specified that the children were walking along the Alley of Life in Stroginsky Park. The lightning struck the ground. The girl, aged 14, suffered serious injuries; the boy - aged only three years - lost consciousness.

Life News reports citing eyewitness that the three-year boy and the 14-year-old were swimming in a pond near a summer cafe on the alley, when the storm began. The children hid under a tree, but the lightning struck the tree, underneath which the children were hiding. "The boy was all covered with burns!" an eyewitness told the publication.

Spokespeople for law-enforcement agencies in the Moscow region said that in Sergiev Posad (a town near Moscow) a lightning killed two guest workers from Uzbekistan - a father and son, aged 53 and 18. According to Life News, Ismail Usmanov and his son Camille were repairing the roof when a powerful discharge of electricity hit the roof.

Many of the streets of Moscow were flooded, which made the traffic situation on the last day of the week even more complicated.

Many Muscovites wrote in social networks that the rain, which lasted in the city center for about 10 minutes, flooded Solyanka and Ordynka Streets, Spartakovskaya Square and Sadovnicheskaya Street. The water level in some places completely hid car wheels, RIA Novosti said.

"The cars are swimming on the parking lot... There's water inside the cars," Internet users wrote posting photographs and videos. "The water level reached 20 centimeters and even 40-45 centimeters in some places," another eyewitness said.

According to eyewitnesses, the heavy downpour flooded the streets in Kitay-Gorod, Taganka and Leninsky Prospekt.

"Shosse Entuziastov is paralyzed completely because of the rain, nothing can be seen, the drivers are afraid to go," - said another eyewitness.

"In Sadovaya Street, the water level is up to the chest," another eyewitness who found himself in the midst of the storm, said.

"The cars randomly swim and bump into each other," another person wrote.