A stroll in the park ended in hospital for five college students in southwestern Moscow after a lightning bolt hit the ground next to them, giving them electric shock, city police said on Tuesday.
The students, all of them Uzbekistan natives, were hospitalized, but their injuries were not life-threatening, police said on their website. Medics were to allow them return to their dormitory after performing electrocardiography, the report said.
Initial reports said the students were on a park footpath which appeared to be electrically conductive, but police said later they were walking along a regular street when the lightning struck.
A storm warning was issued for Moscow on Tuesday, which is Russia Day, a national holiday. Rain showers hit the capital throughout the day, but ceased during a mass opposition rally in the afternoon and a pop concert on the Red Square in the evening.
Various statistical estimates put the odds of being struck by the lightning in a lifetime of 80 years at between 1/3,000 and 1/10,000.