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Thousands of people in Indonesia cheered while some knelt in prayer as a total eclipse of the sun plunged the country into darkness on Wednesday.
The rare event was witnessed across 12 provinces in the country, encompassing three time zones and some 40 million people.
Other parts of the Indonesian archipelago, Asia and northern Australia saw a partial eclipse.
Thousands of amateur stargazers had flocked to Indonesia and tour groups chartered ships to view the eclipse, which started in the Indian Ocean and ended in the Pacific.
A dozen Americans boarded a flight from Anchorage in Alaska to Honolulu to take advantage of a sweet spot for viewing the eclipse north of Hawaii.
A total eclipse occurs when the moon is close enough to the Earth for the sun to be completely covered by its shadow, leaving only a ring of rays known as the corona visible.
Thousands of men, women and children who gathered in Sigi Biromaru, a hilltop town of Indonesia’s Central Sulawesi province, shouted and clapped as the sun transformed into a dark orb for more than two minutes.
Hundreds of others prayed at nearby mosques.
Birds appeared confused and disorientated as darkness fell again shortly after dawn.
“The sun totally disappeared. How amazing this sunny morning suddenly changed to dark,” said Junaz Amir, a Sigi resident who witnessed the eclipse with his family using special protective glasses.
In Palembang, a Sumatran city of more than 1.4 million people, thousands gathered at the Ampera bridge from well before dawn.
“Too bad we cannot see when the total solar eclipse occurred, but the dark atmosphere when it happened made us feel happy,” said Martha Sembiring.
There was also disappointment for a group of six eclipse chasers who had travelled from Canada and the US to Kalimantan.
Optometrist Ralph Chou, who had been hoping to see his 19th total solar eclipse, said: “Unfortunately we got nothing because we had rain showers and solid cloud.”
The entire eclipse lasted for around three hours, while the length of time the sun was totally eclipsed varied between one and three minutes for viewers on land.