A lightning strike killed 97 Blacknose sheep in the Swiss Alps during a severe overnight storm on July 17, as tens of thousands of electrical discharges swept across the region. The strike hit a fenced pasture at roughly 2,500 metres elevation on the Eggerhorn mountain in the Binntal valley, in the southern canton of Valais, where the animals had clustered tightly together during the storm.
Around 80 sheep survived the strike. The near-total of nearly 100 carcasses was airlifted from the remote alpine meadow by helicopter on Friday after the weather cleared.
Weather service SRF Meteo recorded some 26,000 lightning strikes across Switzerland by Thursday evening alone, part of a prolonged spell of intense storm activity that set the conditions for the tragedy.