Around 18 people were killed late Sunday by bolts of lightning across Bihar, including six children, State Disaster Management Minister Devesh Chand Thakur said.

"The children were playing in the pre-monsoon showers when lightning struck them," Thakur told AFP from the state capital Patna.

Twelve others who were injured were hospitalised, he said.

Torrential rains accompanied by strong winds uprooted trees, damaged houses and brought down power cables across the impoverished state on Sunday night, he said.

In neighbouring Jharkhand, 17 people including two children were killed by lightning strikes, also late on Sunday night, a disaster management spokesman said in the capital Ranchi.

Lightning strikes during the June-September monsoon season are common, with villagers housed in bamboo-and-grass huts most at risk of death and injury.

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