Lightning strike injures six at Czech camp as storms disrupt Czech and Slovak transport
A thunderstorm on the night of 1 July 2026 sent a lightning bolt into a tree at a children’s camp near Jindřichův Hradec in southern Bohemia. The strike caused secondary electrical injury to a middle‑aged man, who was briefly unconscious and was air‑lifted to the emergency department of a hospital in České Budějovice. Five children were also treated and taken to the same hospital. Emergency services – ambulances, a rescue‑helicopter, fire‑brigade crews, police and crisis‑intervention teams – responded on the scene.
The incident was part of a broader spell of extreme weather that brought roughly 50 000 lightning strikes to the Czech Republic over three days, with the highest activity recorded in Central Bohemia, Vysočina, Plzeň and South‑Moravian regions. Very strong thunderstorms also hit Slovakia on 1 July, damaging trees and power lines and forcing the national railway operator ZSSK to curtail dozens of services and provide replacement buses on multiple routes.
The Czech Hydrometeorological Institute issued a storm warning for the Haná area, forecasting intense rain totals of up to 50 mm, hailstones up to 2 cm and gusts up to 70 km/h, and warning of local flash‑flood risk, tree failure and power outages. Volunteer firefighters and an arborist are carrying out cleanup in the affected municipalities, estimating that the work will take about two months. A weather forecast for the rest of the week predicts mainly sunny conditions with daytime highs of 20‑26 °C and only scattered showers on Sunday.
These developments illustrate the immediate human impact of the storm – injuries, emergency rescues and transport disruptions – as well as the ongoing response and a short‑term return to calmer weather.