Sydney kicked off New Year celebrations with a dazzling fireworks display, the first in a wave of pyrotechnics to usher in 2014 from Hong Kong to world record-chasing Dubai.
Seven tonnes of explosives lit up the harbour, with fireworks shooting off the Opera House for the first time in more than 10 years as part of the December 31 extravaganza.
‘They were absolutely fantastic,’ said Murphy Robertson, from Denver in the US, after watching the $A6 million show which attracted some 1.5 million people to harbour vantage points.
‘The Opera House was fantastic, but the thing that really got me was the sparks, the golden curtain of sparks going off the bridge.’
Dubai meanwhile is hoping to break the Guinness World Record for the largest display, pledging to set off more than 400,000 fireworks. Kuwait set the mark in 2011 with an hour-long blast of 77,282 fireworks.
Tonga, located near the international dateline, was one of the first nations to greet 2014, holding a prayer festival that culminated with a bamboo ‘cannon’ fired into the air.
Antarctica was also among the first places to usher in 2014. Passengers and crew on a ship awaiting rescue after being stuck for a week in ice rang in the new year with their specially composed anthem.
Giving a rousing rendition from the top deck of the Akademik Shokalskiy in footage posted on YouTube, the Australasian Antarctic Expedition sang of ‘having fun doing science in Antarctica’, only to lament in the chorus the ‘bloody great shame we are still stuck here’.
In Hong Kong, the city’s skyscrapers were lit up by a dazzling eight-minute pyrotechnics show fired from a 1km line of barges along Victoria Harbour.
An estimated 400,000 revellers packed the shoreline to watch the show. Isabella Garrow, a 39-year-old Brazilian living in Jakarta, was there with her children.
‘They’re used to fireworks on the beach in Rio, so it’s a bit different. They’re noticing the cold but they’re still excited,’ she told AFP.
In Japan, the celebrations were quieter. Small fireworks displays were held across the country. But millions of people turned out to local temples and shrines to greet the new year with contemplation and to pray for peace for relatives.
For areas ravaged by Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, celebrations were much more muted than usual.
In Tacloban, which bore the brunt of the November 8 storm, officials were preparing a midnight fireworks display to try to raise spirits in a region where nearly 8000 died or are still missing.
In Singapore, people flocked to the financial district for fireworks while thousands of white spheres were launched on Marina Bay, holding residents’ wishes for 2014.
In Rio de Janeiro, authorities are predicting that 2.3 million people – a third of them tourists – will crowd Copacabana Beach for fireworks and pop music.
Major spectaculars will also light up Moscow’s Red Square, Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate and central London when Big Ben chimes midnight.
An expected one million revellers will gather in New York to mark the stroke of midnight and the traditional New Year’s Eve ball-drop over Times Square.
Source: Sky News
STUDIO 3 NEWCASTLE AUSTRALIA 