Local residents were left shocked after more than 500 sheep were found dead after reportedly being hit by a single lightning strike while grazing on a mountain pasture in southern Georgia.
According to news reports, Nikolay Levanov, a sheep owner, received a distressing phone call from his sheepherder that told him over a hundred of his sheep had been killed in a thunderstorm.
Levanov later discovered that along with his own herd, 400 other sheep had also been killed by the same strike.
Luckily, the sheepherder was only knocked unconscious by the lighting and was able to recover.
Shocking footage captured at the scene shows hundreds of sheep carcasses laying dead.
Levanov and the other sheep owners have appealed to Georgian authorities for financial assistance to help with their mass losses, but they said a scientific commission had to determine if the lightning was definitely the cause of death.
“To be honest, this is the first such case. We have not heard that a thunderstorm could kill so many sheep,” the deputy mayor of Ninotsminda, Alexander Mikeladze, said.
“Of course, the mayor’s office will provide support, but first, the farmer himself must bring the opinion of experts in order to accurately determine the cause of the mass death.”
It was announced that the 550 sheep were to be burned on the site, as mountainous terrain made it difficult to transport them away.