The storm that hit India on April 30, 1888, is considered to have been the world’s worst.
Hailstones said to be the size of softballs killed 246 people. Some people died because they were hit and battered by the stones, but others were knocked unconscious, buried under mounds of hailstones, and later died from the cold.
The same storm killed 1,500 cattle, sheep, and goats. A hailstorm in China in 1932 killed 200 people and injured thousands of others. This storm was considered to be very unusual because it lasted two hours. Most of these storms are short and are over in ten to thirty minutes.
It is believed that only one person in the United States has ever died as a result of one of these storms.
