In the Makkah region of Saudi Arabia, which is home to the Grand Mosque, the holiest site in Islam, violent storms shut down classes on Wednesday, according to witnesses. The Grand Mosque was battered by wind and rain overnight.
A bolt of lightning struck the renowned Fairmont Makkah Clock Royal Tower hotel late on Tuesday, lighting up the night sky as pilgrims attempted to circumambulate the Kaaba, the enormous black cube towards which all Muslims pray.
AFP was informed by Hussein al-Qahtani, spokesman for the National Centre for Meteorology, that the storm produced gale-force winds that exceeded 80 kilometres per hour.
According to Qahtani, the weather was comparable to a storm in 2015 that caused a crane at the Grand Mosque to fall, killing over 100 people and injuring hundreds more.
There were no casualties in the storm on Tuesday.
Abu Mayyada, a resident of Makkah, told AFP that as the worst of the storm arrived, “everything went black in front of me” as he was out purchasing cigarettes and petrol.
“I abruptly lost control of the car. I turned on the radio and began listening to the [Holy Quran] because I was unable to see anything. I didn’t know what was going on,” he admitted.
The meteorology centre posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the Makkah neighbourhood of Al-Kakkiyah received 45 millimetres of rain in a 24-hour period.
Residents of Makkah sent AFP video showing pilgrims outside the Grand Mosque being knocked over by the wind, which also caused crowd barriers to slide across the wet ground.
Mohammed, a resident of Makkah, described the scene as “very frightening” while he was grocery shopping during the storm’s peak.
Everything happened within a short period of time after it began to rain erratically.
Yusuf, a different resident, claimed that while August typically brings strong winds to Makkah, the storm on Tuesday was “the worst” he could recall.
By Wednesday morning, the residents, who would only use their first names out of fear of retaliation, claimed that the flash flooding had mostly subsided.
However, the Mecca regional government announced on X that schools would be shut down in some areas of Mecca and that classes would be held online instead, “in the interest of everyone’s safety”.
The Makkah region and other parts of western Saudi Arabia could experience rain, wind, and thunder on Wednesday, the meteorology centre warned.
