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Video shows lightning striking Washington Monument; site remains closed to visitors

Dramatic video showed a lightning bolt streaking across the sky over the National Mall and striking the top of the white obelisk.
The Washington Monument is seen on the National Mall on July 14, 2021.
The Washington Monument on July 14.Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images file

The Washington Monument remained closed for a second day Tuesday to repair "damage to the electronic access system caused by Sunday morning's lightning strike," the National Park Service said.

A bolt of lightning struck the monument in Washington, D.C., on Sunday morning, and it was closed Monday, the National Park Service's National Mall account tweeted.

Travis Nix, a law student who tweets under the handle @tnix113, tweeted the video early Sunday.

The park service tweeted Monday evening that the monument would remain closed for another day. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the monument's expected reopening.

The 555-foot-tall marble obelisk, completed in 1884, has faced extended closures for most of the past decade.

After an earthquake in Virginia in 2011, the Washington Monument was closed for painstaking repairs to cracks in its stone and mortar.

After it reopened in 2014, it closed again in 2016 for elevator repairs and did not reopen until 2019.

"We couldn't guarantee that you wouldn't get stuck," a spokesperson said at that time.