PATNA, India (AFP) - A total of 27 people, including six children, were killed across the eastern Indian state of Bihar after they were struck by lightning, officials said on Wednesday.

Twenty-two of the deaths were reported on Tuesday, while another five people were killed during pre-monsoon showers on Wednesday, the minister in charge of Bihar's disaster management said.

"It is sad that lightning claimed so many lives," Mr Renu Kumari Kushwaha said in the state capital Patna.

Another ministry official said the six children were playing outdoors during the showers when they were electrocuted.

Lightning strikes during the June-September annual monsoon are fairly common in the impoverished state, where villagers living in bamboo and grass huts are at risk of death or injury.

The monsoon is set to cover flood-prone Bihar on June 12, meteorological officials have said.