The City of Makkah was battered with heavy rain on Tuesday, 22nd August evening, while lightning was seen striking the crescent of the Clock Tower.
In a rare video captured from the heights of the mountains of Makkah which went viral on social media, a thick streak of lightning could be seen hitting the top of the Clock Tower at 8:00 pm and lightening up the sky for a few seconds.
- Makkah Clock Royal Tower, also known as the Abraj Al-Bait Towers, is a building complex in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. The tallest tower in the complex stands as the tallest building in Saudi Arabia, and one of the tallest hotels in the world, with a height of 601 meters (1,972 feet)*
Other videos also showed pilgrims struggling to circle the Kaaba at Masjid al-Haram amid strong winds with some having to dodge separation barriers that were blown around.
Cleaners and their equipment
were also seen being swept around by the wind.
Why does the lightning only strike the crescent of the Clock Tower?
The big clock tower in Makkah is built with special parts to keep it safe. There are 800 rods inside it that help protect the clock and the lights from lightning. There are also 20 rods on the tower that can reach out automatically if there’s lightning.
At the very top of the clock tower, there’s a long rod. This rod acts like a magnet for lightning. When a bolt of lightning comes down, the rod guides the dangerous electricity safely into the ground. It does this using special metals like copper and aluminum. This helps make sure the tower doesn’t get hurt by the powerful burst of energy from the lightning.
There are many other tall buildings around the world that experience the same phenomenon. One such example is the 828-meter world’s tallest building Burj Khalifa located in Dubai. This marvelous building has at least three lightning hits per month.
The Empire State Building in New York, USA also gets 100 lightening hits per year while the Petronas Twin Tower in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia gets hits by lightning 40 times in one single year.
* Agency reports