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19th Jan 2014

Amazing image of lightning striking the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro

Wow.

Conor Heneghan

Wow.

Repairs on the iconic statue will be carried out in the immediate future after the thumb on the right hand was chipped during a storm in which approximately 40,000 lightning strikes hit Rio in one of the biggest storms recorded since monitoring began in the country in 1999.

While it can’t have been too pleasant for residents of Rio on Thursday night, the lightning certainly made for a spectacular sight and nowhere more so than in the surrounds of the famous statue, which stands at 38 metres tall with an arm span of 28 metres.

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Given that it’s as big a target as Father Stone holding a putter aloft on a crazy golf course, it’s little surprise that the statue is hit by lightning between three and five times a year on average and it’s lucky that nobody was around the statue at the time because although it was only part of a thumb that was chipped off, we wouldn’t liked to have been stood directly underneath.

Pics via Getty

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