Girl, 11, is killed by a lightning bolt which hit her phone

11-year-old girl was killed when lightning struck her mobile phone as she tried to answer a call from her father, Russian police say. The victim, only known by her first name Arina, had been caught in a storm near her grandparents' home in the Chernoyarsk district of south-western Russia's Astrakhan Oblast region. Arina suffered 90 per cent burns after being struck by a lighting bolt while helping her elderly grandparents drive the family sheep.

The grandparents became worried when the young girl failed to come home, in the wake of the storm. 

Her grandfather went out into the storm to look for her and was devastated to find her lifeless body lying on the ground.

He called for an ambulance to take her to a nearby hospital but doctors were unable to save the little girl's life.

Arina and her sister  had been staying with their grandparents as their parents were living and working in a the city.

Police reportedly found evidence that Arina had tried to answer a call to her mobile phone from her just before she died. They later found that the call had come from her father.

Arina's sister Milana said: 'When the storm began, our father called her mobile phone, she replied and lighting struck right on the phone. It just melted in her hands.'

She said police had matched the time the lightning struck with the time of the phone call.