Under the spell of darkness at daybreak

Business Times - 23 Jul 2009

TOKYO) Millions of Asians turned their eyes skyward yesterday as dawn suddenly turned to darkness across the continent in the longest total solar eclipse this century will see. Millions of others, fearing a bad omen, shuttered themselves indoors.

Chinese launched fireworks and danced in Shanghai. On a remote Japanese island, bewildered cattle went to their feeding troughs thinking night had fallen. And in India, a woman was crushed as thousands of viewers crowded the banks of the Ganges for a glimpse.

Starting off in India just after dawn, the eclipse was visible across a wide swath of Asia before moving over southern Japan and then off into the Pacific Ocean. In some parts of Asia, it lasted as long as six minutes and 39 seconds.

The eclipse is the longest since July 11, 1991, when a total eclipse lasting six minutes, 53 seconds was visible from Hawaii to South America. There will not be a longer eclipse than yesterday's until 2132.

The celestial event was met by a mixture of awe, excitement and fear.

Cloudy skies and rain damped the show in many areas, but villagers in the town of Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges in India, got one of the best views.

Thousands of Hindus took to the waters to cleanse their sins. The eclipse was seen there for three minutes and 48 seconds.

The gathering was marred when a 65-year-old woman was killed and six people injured in a stampede at one of the river's banks where about 2,500 people had gathered, said police spokesman Surendra Srivastava. He said it is not clear how the stampede started.

Others in India, though, were gripped by fear and refused to come outdoors.

In Hindu mythology, an eclipse is caused when a dragon-demon swallows the sun, while another myth is that sun rays during an eclipse can harm unborn children. 'My mother and aunts have called and told me stay in a darkened room with the curtains closed, lie in bed and chant prayers,' Krati Jain, 24, who is expecting her first child, said in New Delhi\. \-- AP