Makkah Traffic Snarls in Heat

MAKKAH, 10 June 2008 — A power outage in Makkah resulted in traffic jams on several roads in the city at around noontime yesterday. When the electricity failed the road signals also stopped functioning. Traffic police had to control the traffic manually. Finally the situation on the roads was brought back to normalcy with the help of generators.

The rising temperature leads to disruption in the power supply due to increased demand to cool buildings, causing temporary outages in parts of the electrical grid, especially during peak daytime hours.