LIGHTNING killed and injured a dozen people in Russia in the past two weeks.

Some officials are blaming widespread use of electronic gadgets like handphones for the increase in deaths, reported CNN.

On Wednesday, a lightning bolt killed three sunbathers in the town of Neftekamsk, about 1,290km east of Moscow.

One victim, Marina Sadykova, 26, was among a few people on a beach along the Kama River when a storm moved in. Witnesses said they saw a sharp, blinding ray of light that raised seven metres of sand.

The woman, the mother of a 5-month-old boy, was talking on a handphone when she was killed. According to police, the phone was found melted in her hand.

In other parts of Russia, other instances of lightning-related deaths include the case of a 10-year-old boy riding a bike while talking on a handphone and an elderly farmer tending her potato plants.

Mr Leonid Tarkov of the weather observation centre Fobos said he believes that the increase in lightning strikes may be linked to the prevalence of portable electronic devices, such as handphones or music players.

'These things are electromagnetic field carriers,' he said. 'That makes them, in essence, conductors. Thunderbolts are frequently attracted to such things, and hits are often connected with a lethal outcome.'

The theory that lightning can follow the weak electromagnetic fields of such devices is rejected by virtually all scientists.

But there is evidence that a lightning strike is more likely to be fatal for a person carrying any object with metal in it.

Mr Tarkov himself pointed out another explanation for the surge in lightning strikes in Russia recently: The country has been hit by an unusually high number of storms.

He said Moscow is 139 per cent above normal for rainfall this month, including 51mm of rain from a fierce thunderstorm on Wednesday, which is equal to five buckets of water on each square metre.

This article was first published in The New Paper on 20 July 2008.