Dazzling start to New Year for cities round the world...
CITIES round the world welcomed the New Year with dazzling firework displays and traditional celebrations last night.
Samoa was the first country to welcome 2018 with celebrations including fireworks, dancing and juggling.
The South Pacific island has been the first to see the New Year since 2011 when it moved from the eastern side of the international date line to the west side.
Auckland in New Zealand followed soon. An estimated 1.6 million people then gathered to see the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House lit up by one of the world’s most technologically advanced fireworks displays.
In Japan, revellers welcomed the Year of the Rat with traditional food including prawns, sweetened black beans and bitter oranges.
Buddhist temples and shrines including Tokyo’s Zojoji Temple also marked the occasion by striking a gong 108 times to symbolise 108 human weaknesses.
Though they used to share the same time zone, 2018 began half an hour later in Pyongyang with fireworks and flag-waving onlookers. North Korea changed its time zone in 2015 to mark its liberation from the Japanese at the end of the Second World War.
A colourful six-minute display at the Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan wowed onlookers despite the number of fireworks being cut by almost half amid air pollution concerns. And the city landscape of Hong Kong was lit up with another spectacular show.
Bangkok was also illuminated by pyrotechnics after Thailand’s prime minister temporarily lifted a ban on fireworks, allowing them to be set off for an hour either side of midnight.