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Al-Ahram Weekly 12 - 18 August 1999 Issue No. 442 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 12 - 18 August 1999 Issue No. 442
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Books Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters United in awe
The last solar eclipse of the 20th century swung across Europe and the Middle East yesterday, giving millions of people their last chance to witness one of nature's great shows.
The eclipse began when the shadow of the moon completely covered the sun at 09:31GMT off Canada's east coast near Nova Scotia and started its 1,500 mile/hour race across the Atlantic Ocean.
At 10:10 GMT, it reached Britain's Scilly Isles. Within a minute it had swept ashore on the English mainland. The 2,000 people who normally populate the Scilly Isles quadrupled for the event and more than one million people crammed into the toe of England -- the picturesque county of Cornwall -- to see the eclipse.
Weather forecasters had been gloomy about the prospects of witnessing the phenomenon in Cornwall, but at the very last moment the clouds parted to produce two minutes and six seconds of pure magic.
People cheered, wept and popped champagne corks as they enjoyed the spectacular light-and-dark show. An eerie shadow crept across the sun, darkness fell abruptly and the horizon glowed. The temperature plummeted to 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
According to Reuters, it felt like the end of the world as the last total eclipse to be seen in Western Europe until 2081 pulled out all the stops. The next total solar eclipse will be in 2001, over Africa.
London's Old Bailey Court ground to a halt so that lawyers and judges could enjoy the partial eclipse in southeast England. Telephones went unanswered at many financial trading rooms as the dealers joined the tens of thousands of Londoners who had congregated on street corners to look at the spectacle.
Two hundred people got a jump on earthbound viewers by boarding a Concorde flight at London's Heathrow airport, making a supersonic chase of the shadow from a cloud-free 16,800m height, AP said.
The moon's shadow slid across parts of France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan, turning day into night across a swathe 60 miles wide, before sinking at sunset into the Bay of Bengal, off India.
The point of greatest eclipse -- as the moon's axis passes closest to earth -- fell on the Romanian town of Ramincu Valcea for two minutes and 27 seconds. Thousands crammed the town's streets and hundreds more made the trek to a half-dried up salt lake just outside the city, munching on barbecued prawn and steak. As the eclipse approached totality, a loud cheer went up from the crowd. Temperatures dropped dramatically as the clear skies grew dark. From the first darkening to the return to full sunlight, the event lasted 20 minutes.
Scientists observed the event from airplanes and ground stations. One team from Williams College in Massachusetts recorded the eclipse from the roof of a downtown hotel in Ramincu Valcea, carrying out experiments on solar heating, the sun's corona and the sun's magnetic field. "It worked great," exulted Jay Pasachoff, director of the Hopkins Observatory at Williams College. His team cracked open a bottle of champagne and began downloading data as the sun began to reappear.
In Berlin, a 24-year-old German was the first victim of the eclipse when he was taken to hospital with severe burns after he climbed a power pylon to get a good view and then touched the 20,000-volt electricity cable. There were huge traffic jams on major roads throughout Europe as motorists stopped to look at the eclipse. US and British warplanes patrolled the skies of northern Iraq as normal despite a request by Iraq to put the flights on hold for a day, so Iraqis and scientists from Egypt, Libya and Syria could watch the eclipse in safety.
Streets from Beirut to Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon were empty as most Lebanese heeded government warnings to stay at home. Some of the faithful flocked into mosques for special eclipse prayers to ward off the event's dire consequences, while others said they had barricaded themselves in their homes to avoid looking at the sun's rays. Jordan and Syria declared a national holiday, warning people to stay indoors to avoid eye damage, while schoolchildren in Sudan were given a holiday.
In the Iranian city of Isfahan, where the US space agency NASA said the best viewing was possible, Iran's religious establishment directed pious Muslims to perform the namaz-e ayat, a special prayer offered during such natural phenomena to celebrate God's glory and power. Thousands of Iranians watched in awe as darkness fell on Isfahan in the middle of the day.
Ahead of the eclipse, strong earthquakes shook the Middle East early yesterday, killing one person and injuring another in Iran and injuring 26 people in Cyprus, AFP reported.
