Local residents were left shocked after more than 500 sheep were found dead after reportedly being hit by a single lighting strike while grazing on a mountain pasture.

According to news reports, Nikolay Levanov, a sheep owner, received a distressing phone call from his sheepherder that told him over a hundred of his sheep had been killed in a thunderstorm.

Leaov was not aware that along with his own herd, 400 other sheep had also been killed by the same strike.

The sheepherder was luckily only knocked unconscious by the lighting and was able to recover.

Shocking footage captured at the scene shows hundreds of carcasses thrown over a green in southern Georgia.

Levanov and the other sheep owners have appealed to Georgian authorities for financial assistance to help with their mass losses, but they said a scientific commission had to determine if the lightning was definitely the cause of death.

“To be honest, this is the first such case. We have not heard that a thunderstorm could kill so many sheep,” the deputy mayor of Ninotsminda, Alexander Mikeladze, said.

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“Of course, the mayor’s office will provide support, but first, the farmer himself must bring the opinion of experts in order to accurately determine the cause of the mass death.”

On August 12, it was announced that the 550 sheep were to be burned on the site, as mountainous terrain made it difficult to transport them away.

It is currently unclear if the owners were compensated in any way.

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A similar incident occurred in 2016, in Norway, when a herd of around 300 reindeer was found dead in a remote area of the barren Hardanangervidda plateau.

Until now it was described as the deadliest lightning strike ever.

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