When it was reassembled in Rome in 1937, three steel bars were inserted per section. When the obelisk was hit by lightning during a violent thunderstorm over Rome on 27 May 2002, this caused "considerable" damage. In the new reconstruction the three sections are fixed together by a total of eight aramid fiber (Kevlar) bars: four between the first and second and four between the second and third sections. This arrangement guarantees structural resistance during earthquakes and avoids the use of steel, so as not to again make the stele a magnet for lightning and to avoid rust.