Sydney and Auckland are the primary main world cities to have fun the arrival of 2024.
Sydney and Auckland are the primary main world cities to welcome the arrival of 2024.
Over one million revellers celebrated the New Yr 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 endured all through the day in Auckland had cleared by midnight over town.
The countdown commenced towards an illuminated digital show close to the highest of the 328-metre (1,076-foot) communications and statement tower.
Because the clock struck midnight in Australia’s largest metropolis, Sydney, a 12-minute fireworks show erupted across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
A couple of 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 Yr an hour earlier.
In Japan, temple bells rang out throughout the nation as individuals gathered at shrines and temples to welcome within the New Yr.
On the Tsukiji Temple in Tokyo, guests got free sizzling milk and corn soup as they stood in line to strike a giant bell, and a pipe-organ live performance was held earlier than an impressive altar.
Finish of a tense yr
The New Yr celebrations got here towards the backdrop of Israel’s battle on Gaza, which has heightened tensions in some cities around the globe, together with Sydney, the place extra police than ever have 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 have 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 battle.
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 lots of others”.
