Lightning strikes in eastern China killed at least 15 gamblers as they sat under trees playing mahjong and other games, newspapers said on Sunday.
About 30 residents of Duqiao, in the coastal province of Zhejiang, had gathered beneath the trees on Saturday when the lightning hit, the City Express newspaper reported.
"After the second lightning bolt struck, everyone fell to the ground," it quoted one witness as saying.
The dead and injured were taken to hospital, leaving the ground littered with mahjong tiles, newspapers said.
State television showed footage of more than a dozen injured villagers in hospital.
The official Xinhua news agency, meanwhile, said that 18 people had been killed by lightning so far this year and 54 injured in the south-western province of Guizhou.