Sydney and Auckland are the primary main world cities to rejoice the arrival of 2024.
Sydney and Auckland are the primary main world cities to welcome the arrival of 2024.
Over 1,000,000 revellers celebrated the New 12 months on Sunday evening amid beautiful fireworks shows, illuminating the skies over Australia’s Sydney Harbour and New Zealand’s tallest construction, the Sky Tower in Auckland.
The sunshine rain that had continued all through the day in Auckland had cleared by midnight over town.
The countdown commenced in opposition to an illuminated digital show close to the highest of the 328-metre (1,076-foot) communications and remark tower.
Because the clock struck midnight in Australia’s largest metropolis, Sydney, a 12-minute fireworks show erupted across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Multiple million individuals watched from the shore and boats within the harbour.
The small Pacific island nations of Tonga, Samoa and Kiribati had ushered within the New 12 months an hour earlier.
In Japan, temple bells rang out throughout the nation as individuals gathered at shrines and temples to welcome within the New 12 months.
On the Tsukiji Temple in Tokyo, guests got free sizzling milk and corn soup as they stood in line to strike an enormous bell, and a pipe-organ live performance was held earlier than an impressive altar.
Finish of a tense yr
The New 12 months celebrations got here in opposition to the backdrop of Israel’s warfare on Gaza, which has heightened tensions in some cities world wide, together with Sydney, the place extra police than ever had been deployed to supervise the fireworks shows.
The waterfront has been the scene of heated pro-Palestinian protests after the sails of the Sydney Opera Home had been illuminated within the colors of the Israeli flag after October 7.
On the Vatican, Pope Francis mirrored on 2023 as a yr outlined by the hardships of warfare.
In his customary Sunday blessing from a window overlooking St Peter’s Sq., he prolonged prayers for varied populations, together with “the tormented Ukrainian individuals and the Palestinian and Israeli populations, the Sudanese individuals, and plenty of others”.
