A thunderbolt has struck at least 15 visitors at the Great Wall during a thunderstorm.

On Friday, some one hundred visitors went to the beacon tower at the Juyongguang section to shelter from the rain . The lightning struck some of them near the window of tower.

All those wounded have been hospitalized. They generally report feeling numb and some of them have severe aches.

The visitors attribute the thunderbolt to the lack of lightning conductors at the beacon tower and some say it might have something to do to with the mobile phones people were using during the storm.

(CRI.com July 24, 2004)