Johannesburg, January 15: An eclipse of the sun has passed across central and eastern Africa, setting a record that will remain unbeaten for more than 1000 years.
The solar cover-up, which happened as the moon passed before the sun, was visible in a roughly 300km band running 12,900km.
The annular eclipse – which reduced the sun to a blazing ring surrounding a somber disk – was expected to last for more than 10 minutes in mainland India and will reach a maximum of 11 minutes 8 seconds in parts of the Indian Ocean.
Scientists believe there will not be another annular eclipse lasting as long for more than 1000 years.
An annular eclipse occurs when the moon passes directly in front of the sun but does not completely obscure it, thus leaving a ring – an annulus – of sunlight flaring around the lunar disk.
The moon’s shadow first struck the southwestern tip of Chad and western Central African Republic at 5.14am local time and then flitted across Uganda, Kenya, and Somalia.
The lunar umbra, or shadow was set to cross the Indian Ocean, Bangladesh, India, Burma and China before expiring in the Shandong peninsula at 8.59am local time.
In the Ugandan capital Kampala motorcycle taxi drivers stopped on street corners to share dark glasses and gaze up at the sky.
Some residents were afraid of the intensity of the light.
“Can’t it burn someone? You can’t even look direct because I’m fearing for my eyes. I’m fearing it can burn me,” said Angela Namukwaya, a shopkeeper in a Kampala suburb.
In Kenya, John Saitega, a 34-year-old Maasai and father of six from Olte Tefi 50km south of Nairobi, said he and his friends learned of the eclipse, and the risk to their eyesight from staring at it, from local radio and television.
He said they were all sharing one pair of dark goggles and taking turns to look at the sun.
“It’s getting interesting. Birds are singing. It’s actually getting cold here. It looks like night now,” he said.
—Agencies