Millions of people crowded cloudless cities and towns in Spain on Wednesday in search of the best views of a total solar eclipse, when the perfect alignment of the sun, moon and Earth briefly plunged parts of the planet into darkness.
The crowds brought lawn chairs and umbrellas as they eagerly awaited the celestial spectacle, which began early in the evening. As the sky darkened, gradually at first and then quickly, people broke into applause and cheered.
It was the country’s first total solar eclipse in more than a century.
“It’s simply impossible to imagine,” Rosa Celiberti, a language teacher who watched from Medinaceli, a Roman-era hilltop town in northeast Spain, said with tears in her eyes. “No matter how many photos or videos you’ve seen, nothing comes even close to what it actually feels like.”
Across a wide band of northern and central Spain and Portugal, millions of people enjoyed some of mainland Europe’s best views of the eclipse. It also passed over slivers of Greenland and Iceland.
Totality – when the moon completely covers the sun’s light – was expected to last less than 2½ minutes, reaching its maximum duration off Iceland’s west coast. By the time it reached a small patch of Portugal and then Spain, just before sunset, totality dwindled to a minute or so. The total eclipse then ended over the Mediterranean.
The event unfolded against the backdrop of scorching summer temperatures and wildfires, and Spanish officials rolled out a large public safety campaign.
Temperatures across much of Spain climbed above 35 degrees Celsius in many areas where the eclipse was observed. Some 350 official viewing sites were set up across the sparsely populated interior, and more than 33,500 law enforcement officers were deployed to observation areas and access points, the Interior Ministry said.
Only weeks ago, the most destructive wildfire in Spanish history devoured 500 sq km and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people in Ávila, in central Spain. Several smaller wildfires remain active elsewhere in southern and central parts of the country.
In Iceland’s capital Reykjavik, clouds did not prevent hundreds of people from gathering in bright raincoats in front of the landmark Hallgrimskirkja church as the skies darkened.
With rain falling, the disk of the sun was barely perceptible, and then, suddenly, the lights went out. Only the glow of phones held aloft could be seen.
The crowd cheered the darkness as it rained harder and roared even louder when the first light returned. They did not wait to watch the remainder of the partial eclipse and quickly cleared out of the square.
Special eclipse glasses were essential for safe viewing, even if only a sliver of the sun remained visible. The glasses are made with special filters that block solar radiation that can damage the eyes.
For months, supermarkets, department stores, museums and planetariums across Spain had sold or distributed the glasses, with many pharmacies running out of stock ahead of Wednesday.
On Tuesday evening in downtown Madrid, a long line formed outside a photo shop where a sign read, “We carry eclipse glasses.”
One woman emerged triumphantly and reassured those waiting: “He has boxes and boxes of them!”
Sverre Rud, captain of the MS Spitsbergen, was circling the waters of Rypefjord in eastern Greenland trying to make sure he was perfectly positioned for his 126 passengers to view the spectacle.
All day, people came up to Rud to ask if he had nailed the right spot, with no clouds.
“I will do my best,” Rud said. “I will pull out my Superman powers.”
The eclipse may have been startling for the passengers, who had been experiencing 24 hours of daylight on a 17-day cruise in locations mostly north of the Arctic Circle.
Suddenly, for two minutes it was dark. Even so, the mood on the polar ship had been pure anticipation.
“Everyone is very enthusiastic,” Rud said. “When we were down for breakfast earlier, it was almost like a little bit of a Christmas Eve feeling here.”
Across Britain, where the sun was more than 90 per cent obscured, people flocked to hilltop parks and anywhere with an open view of the sky to see the best eclipse since 1999.
In Greenwich Park, with views of the River Thames and central London, the sky turned an eerie grey as a sliver of light sat atop the moon like a hat.
Veronica Orozco popped open a bottle of champagne to share with neighbours as she witnessed the second eclipse of her life.
“I was in Venezuela, and I was young, and I thought that the sun would not come back. My dad said, ‘It is science, of course it will come back,’” she recalled. “Now sitting here at the age of 41, it is still magical.”
Aja Lilit, who turned 24 on Tuesday, said the eclipse was like a “birthday present from the universe.”
She said the rare event made her think of how small she was at a “cosmic level.”
