31st December, 2013
Dubai attempted to smash the fireworks world record as it ushered in 2014 with a bang, as a wave of pyrotechnics swept around the globe to celebrate the New Year.
The Middle East hub was hoping to break the Guinness World Record for the largest-ever display, pledging to set off more than 400,000 fireworks.
People crowded in the streets below took pictures on their mobile phones as the salvo lit up the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower at 830 metres high.
To the strains of Arabic pop music, the five-minute thundering display filled the skies above the United Arab Emirates’ main city.
See the Dubai show here: http://youtu.be/itdU523TyVE
Kuwait set the record in 2011 with an hour-long blast of 77,282 fireworks.
Sydney had the first of the world’s major pyrotechnic shows, with seven tonnes of explosives lighting up Australia’s biggest city.
Fireworks shot off the Opera House for the first time in more than 10 years as part of the extravaganza, focused on the Harbour Bridge.
“The Opera House was fantastic,” said Murphy Robertson, from Denver in the United States, after watching the Aus$6 million ($5.4 million) show which attracted some 1.5 million people to harbour vantage points.
“The thing that really got me was the sparks, the golden curtain of sparks going off the bridge.”
Kiribati and Samoa in the Pacific were the first to see in the New Year at 1000 GMT Tuesday, in a wave of celebrations that will finish on the United States’ remote Howland and Baker Islands at 1200 GMT Wednesday.
Tonga, located near the international dateline, was one of the first nations to say farewell to 2013, holding a prayer festival that culminated with a bamboo “cannon” fired into the air.