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© ReutersA storm punctuated by repeated lightning strikes hit the area where the four hikers were last seen.
Four people hiking in mountains in southern Poland were killed by lightning, Polish media report.

The four, a couple in their 50s, their daughter and her boyfriend were last seen on Wednesday when they went off the trail in search of shelter from a violent storm.

Their bodies were found on Friday at the bottom of a ravine in the Pieniny mountains, near the Slovak border.

The Polish authorities will investigate the exact cause of death.

"It is extremely rare for a single bolt of lightning to kill four people," mountain rescue official Mariusz Zarod told the Reuters news agency.