This surely is the luckiest girl in Worcestershire.

Eight-year-old Jasmine Griffiths was seconds from death when she narrowly escaped a thunder bolt which destroyed her bed.

The storms wreaked havoc across the county as schools and pubs were hit by thunderbolts - such as this one near Martley captured by Worcester News picture editor Jonathan Barry - and flash floods swept across the area.

Eight-year-old Jasmine had just put her pyjamas on in her bedroom and went downstairs to speak to her grandmother on the phone when lightning hit the house in Kennels Lane, Fernhill Heath, near Worcester.

She normally would have been in bed but was up a bit late as it was the summer holidays.

It blew a hole in the roof causing thousands of pounds worth of damage on Wednesday night.

"There was an almighty bang," said mum Rebecca Griffiths. "It sounded like a bomb."

The electricity surged through the television aerial and travelled through the wiring in the walls before it hit the Hindlip C of E First School pupil's bed at the back of the house at about 8.45pm.

Mrs Griffiths, aged 31, said: "We heard explosions at the same time and glass shattering - we just didn't know what was actually happening.

"The kids were jumping around and screaming in the dark."

With rainwater coming through a collapsed ceiling upstairs, Jasmine and her nine-year-old brother Max were taken to a neighbour's house before the parents returned to the house.

Mrs Griffiths, a fleet and facilities administrator, said: "We went upstairs and saw a great big ball of flames on Jasmine's bed.

Jasmine's dad Paul Griffiths, 40, added: I got a bowl of water to throw on the bed, but I got to the top of the stairs and I couldn't go any further - it was so hot and dark, I couldn't breathe."

The fire brigade were called and arrived within five minutes.

Two firefighters wearing breathing apparatus threw the burning bed out the window and contained the fire to the back room but an estimated £20,000 of damage was already done.

When the lightning hit the house it shattered windows and mirrors and blew sockets from the, walls with some of the debris hitting Jasmine on the head.

The house will now have to be rewired, redecorated and re-roofed.

Mrs Griffiths said: "The kids are very upset - they didn't sleep very well last night. If Jasmine had been in her bed, well, it just doesn't bear thinking about - she could so easily have been there. If it had been a school night, she would have been."

Mr Griffiths, a software engineer, added: "We're just relieved we're all okay.

"The damage to the house can be repaired but it could so easily have been a different story."