Thousands gather for eclipse
Thousands of people gathered in northern China on Friday to watch the first solar eclipse in the country this century, state media reported, a week ahead of the Olympic Games.
Around 10,000 people gathered in Yiwu, a small town 500 kilometres (310 miles) east of Urumqi, the capital of northwest Xinjiang province, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The weather there was favourable for the eclipse, experts said, and there was a 76 percent chance of seeing the natural phenomenon, Xinhua quoted Wang Kemin, deputy director of the Beijing Astronomical Observatory, as saying.
In Xian, the capital of northern Shaanxi province, where the eclipse was due to end, the weather was cloudy, leading to doubts over whether it would be seen, the Xian Evening News reported.
The eclipse was expected to start at 0923 GMT in Canada, and was expected to last two hours, although the total eclipse would only be two minutes long.
It was due to cover 10,200 kilometres in that time, and extend across northern Greenland, the Arctic, central Russia and Mongolia, before ending in northern China around 1120 GMT.
Foreign tourists had also come to see the eclipse, Xinhua said, with at least 500 foreign travellers in Yiwu and Jiayuguan, a city in neighbouring Gansu province, where the eclipse was also expected to be highly visible.
The next solar eclipse in China will take place on July 22, 2009, Xinhua quoted astronomers as saying.
A total solar eclipse is caused when the moon blots out the sun by passing directly between it and the earth, and has traditionally been associated with misfortune.
Astrologers and feng shui experts have recently said the eclipse might spook the superstitious one week ahead of the Games but Chinese authorities have no reason to fear for the Olympics.
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