I am pretty sure I have no future in daily publications. This happened 5 days ago and only now I'm "reporting" about it. If I work for the daily papers, I'll be fired by now.

Anyway, according to Wikipedia,

The Merlion (simplified Chinese: 鱼尾狮; pinyin: Yúwěishī; Tamil: கடல்சிங்கம்) is an imaginary creature with the head of a lion and the body of a fish. Its name combines "mer" meaning the sea and "lion". The fish body comes from Singapore's ancient name back when it was a fishing village - Temasek - meaning "sea town" in Javanese. The lion head represents Singapore's original name - Singapura - meaning "lion city" in Sanskrit and Malay.

It seems our dear iconic Merlion statue (the one at One Fullerton facing the Singapore River) was STRUCK by lightning during a thunderstorm!

According to ST online, an eyewitness Ms. Rina Toh, 17, a barista at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at One Fullerton, said,

"I saw a bright Z-shaped lightning bolt, and it was a lot bigger than usual."

She was standing at the counter and could see the Merlion.

The thunderstorm happened at roughly 4-5pm last Saturday. Parts of the statue fell near a group of startled visitors but fortunately, no one was hurt (or hurt badly enough to be reported).

According to REUTERS,

Singapore's police could not be reached for comment while a spokesman for Singapore's information ministry said she did not have any details about the incident.

In conclusion, stay indoors when there's a thunderstorm, make sure you are no where close to the Merlion statue. For all you know you might not be as lucky as the 20-30 passers-by? ;x

And yes, I have no conclusion, I'm just reporting. In other words, my conclusion makes no point whatsoever.

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