People welcomed in the New Year in the Americas as clocks struck midnight and North and South America followed Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East into the year 2020 early on Wednesday.
A massive crowd watched the traditional ball drop at Times Square on New Year’s Eve to welcome in 2020 on the east coast of the United States.
Around one million people packed into an area of several blocks around Midtown Manhattan to ring in 2020. Millions more watched various television shows which traditionally broadcast from the venue.
The revellers sang “Auld Lang Syne” and “New York, New York” once the ball had dropped. Security was tight, as also in recent years.
In Rio de Janeiro, hundreds of thousands tourists rocked Copacabana beach to ring in the new year. Fireworks were shot into the night sky from 10 boats for a 14-minute spectacle.
Elsewhere in Rio, locals danced their way into 2020 at numerous music venues all around town. Elsewhere in Latin America, Buenos Aires is among the continent’s other top New Year’s Eve party locations.
In the German capital earlier, thousands of tourists and Berliners flocked to Germany’s largest New Year’s Eve party near the Brandenburg Gate landmark.
So many people had already arrived by around 8 pm (1900 GMT) that the entrances to the party area in the centre of the German capital were closed to prevent overcrowding, the organisers said.
In Belgium, the start of the New Year was marked by a firework display at Brussels’ iconic Atomium while in Bruges spectators saw a new kind of show: the traditional firework display has been abandoned in favour of a light spectacle using drones, the Belga news agency reported.
French party-goers faced greater challenges than usual to reach their destinations as a transport strike left local and long-distance travel extremely disrupted. The celebrations in the French capital Paris usually attract several million people. Additional bus services had been arranged to bring people home safely.
Despite ongoing renovations at the Houses of Parliament, Britain’s iconic Big Ben clock rang in the New Year in London, accompanied by a huge fireworks display at the London Eye Ferris wheel on the bank of the River Thames.
In Scotland to the north, tens of thousands of people took part in Edinburgh’s traditional Hogmanay celebrations.
Russian revellers celebrated on Red Square in Moscow amid tight security. New Year’s is celebrated in a total of 11 times zones across the vast Russian Federation.
This year’s festivities also marked the 20th annniversary of President Vladimir Putin taking over the helm from Boris Yeltsin.
The year began in spectacular style in the United Arab Emirates, which used some 190 drones to set off fireworks in Ras al Khaimah.
The emirate also tried to break the world record for the longest fireworks waterfall, with a display some four kilometres long, according to local media.
Fireworks were not on the agenda for many South Africans, on the other hand, as the authorities banned setting them off in public places except under strict conditions.
New Year’s Eve in the tourist hub Cape Town is instead a night of parties, cocktails and concerts.
The night of global celebrations began with the tiny South Pacific island states of Samoa and Kiribati, which were the first countries to welcome in the New Year.
Fireworks burst over Samoa’s capital, Apia, where tourists mingled with islanders to ring in 2020.
Samoa, which has a population of 200,000, moved to New Year’s Eve pole position in 2011 when it decided to redraw the international dateline.
The biggest fireworks in New Zealand were blasted from the top of Auckland’s iconic Sky Tower, this year with lasers and animations for the first time, the New Zealand Herald reported.
Flags on the Sydney Harbour Bridge were flying at half mast for the victims of the massive fires hitting eastern Australia before the fireworks lit up the sky to welcome in 2020.
The enthusiasm of the 1 million revellers gathered on the foreshore didn’t appear to be dampened by the tragedy of the ferocious fires that took 12 lives and destroyed more than 1,000 homes across Australia in the past six weeks. — dpa
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