Giant Mecca Clock

semPATA News | MUSLIMS around the world could be setting their watches to a new time soon when the world's largest clock begins ticking atop a soaring skyscraper in Islam's holiest city of Mecca. Saudi Arabia hopes the four faces of the new clock, which will loom over Mecca's Grand Mosque from what is expected to be the world's second tallest building, will establish Mecca as an alternate time standard to the Greenwich meridian.

The clock is targeted to enter service with a three-month trial period in the first week of the holy month of Ramadan on or about August 12, according to the Saudi state news agency SPA. It boasts four glimmering 46 metre-across faces of high-tech composite tiles, some laced with gold, sitting more than 400m over the Holy Haram compound.

The tower's height will reach 601 metres, SPA said. On its website, Premiere Composite, which is responsible for cladding the top section, including a shimmering spire topped by a golden crescent moon, puts the planned height at 590 metres. That would make it the world's second tallest building - ahead of Taiwan's 509 metre Taipei 101, but well behind the Burj Khalifa, the 828 metre skyscraper inaugurated in Dubai in January. Some 250 'highly qualified Muslim workers' were completing welding work on the clock's frame, SPA said.

source from www.straitstimes.com