02 May 2010 14:40:15 GMT
[link to www.alertnet.org]
At least 15 people were killed and 50 others were injured by lightning during hailstorms in Bangladesh on Sunday, police and disaster management officials said.

Several thousand people were also made homeless as hundreds of houses were hit by the storms sweeping through four districts in the northern Mymensingh region.

Vast swathes of crops were also damaged and trees and electric poles uprooted in the seasonal tropical storms.

Storms -- peaking in April and lasting until the monsoon begins in middle of June -- kill dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people in Bangladesh every year.

Bangladesh's Meteorological Department raised further storm alerts across the country for the next 24 hours.

Peace