Ten Children Struck Down- By LIGHTNING At A Birthday Party In A Paris Park

Eleven people, including ten children, have been struck by lightning while celebrating a child's birthday at a park in central Paris.

     Thunderstorms hit Paris on Saturday. This picture shows the storm clouds about Roland Garros     tennis arena
At least four people, three children and one adult, suffered life-threatening injuries, a spokesman for the French fire-fighting service said.


The children, aged between seven and 14, were struck while attending a birthday party in Parc Monceau, just to the north of the city centre, at around 3pm local time.
Meanwhile, lighting struck at a children's football match in Hoppstaedten, western Germany, injuring 35 people, three of them seriously.

Eleven people, including ten children, have been struck by lightning while celebrating a child's birthday at a park in central Paris.
At least four people, three children and one adult, suffered life-threatening injuries, a spokesman for the French fire-fighting service said.

The children, aged between seven and 14, were struck while attending a birthday party in Parc Monceau, just to the north of the city centre, at around 3pm local time.
Meanwhile, lighting struck at a children's football match in Hoppstaedten, western Germany, injuring 35 people, three of them seriously.

This off-duty firefighter, identified only as Pascal, gave first aid to some of the injured children in the park. Mr Moulin said it showed the importance of knowing first aid

Mr Moulin says the fireman saw nine of the 11 victims prone on the ground under a tree at Park Monceau, a popular weekend hangout for well-to-do families in Paris.
He said the fireman administered first aid, including heart massages, and helped direct rescuers to the scene.
Mr Moulin says 'without his actions, it would have been much worse.'

The children, who were all aged between seven and 14, have been taken to the city's Necker Hospital.
One is believed to have gone into cardiac arrest and was given first aid by an off-duty firefighter who happened to be in the park.

In France firefighters, or pompiers, are given extensive first aid training unlike their counterparts in some other European countries.
Local councillor Karen Taieb said they were hit by lightning after seeking shelter under a tree

She said the exact number of those involved and how badly they were injured.
Park Monceau is a popular weekend hangout for families in the affluent eighth arrondissement.

The deputy mayor of the eighth arrondissement, Gregoire Gauger, who was in the park at the time, said: 'Unfortunately, they are local children participating in a birthday party who were affected.'
He said: 'It was raining hard, everyone wanted to shelter and suddenly, the lightning struck. We all jumped, I was just 300 metres away.'

The incident in Germany took place at the end of a children's football match in Hoppstaedten, where 35 people were injured by a lightning strike.
The referee of the match was hit directly by the strike and was rushed to hospital. Two other adults also suffered serious injuries.

Thirty children aged between nine and 11 were lightly injured and were taken to hospital for tests, along with two more adults.

"According to witnesses, there was no rain and the sky wasn't dark" when the lightning struck, a police spokesman told DPA.
Weather authorities had issued a storm alert for western and southern Germany on Saturday, warning that the bad weather was due to last the weekend.

Storm Elvira had already hit western Germany on Friday, bringing torrential rain and hail and flooding roads in some areas such as the town of Wiesbaden.
In Rhineland-Palatinate, the state where Hoppstaedten is located, bad weather caused a train to derail but there were no injuries.