Official. I Sympathise With Gulf News

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In reporting the recent 'incident' at Dubai's Burj Khalifa today, Gulf News appears to have gone as far as it felt it could. In the face of unhelpful and possibly even mendacious statements made on behalf of the tower's developer and management company, Emaar, the newspaper has managed to collate a number of eyewitness reports of something having taken place that went way beyond the 'routine maintenance' that we are being expected to believe has closed the observation deck on the tower.

The official statement, quoted by Gulf News is: "Due to unexpected high traffic, the observation deck experience at the Burj Khalifa, At the Top, has been temporarily closed for maintenance and upgrade. Technical issues with the power supply are being worked on by the main and sub-contractors and the public will be informed upon completion."

Gulf News reports eyewitnesses as hearing a 'really loud noise and what looked like smoke or dust coming out from one of the elevator doors' and paramedics being called to the scene. That's hardly the stuff of 'maintenance and upgrade' is it?

Once again, I suspect we are about to see an attempt at obfuscation result in widespread media coverage - the eyewitness reports are stacking up and now social media interest is also perking up quite nicely. GN's story was enough to raise some very real question marks - and now people are going to start looking for answers. They're not going to have to look very far, either.