Eclipse brings scientists, tourists to Indonesia

JAKARTA (JP): It was a school holiday yesterday in Tahuna, North Sulawesi -- the only place in the archipelago from which the total solar eclipse could be seen clearly.

There were two minutes of darkness at noon in the town, which is in the Sangihe Talaud regency. A great number of foreign tourists and scientists were in Tahuna to see the eclipse and the two minutes of darkness were greeted with enthusiasm by all.

In Surabaya, East Java, mosques held khusuf prayers, specially taught by the Prophet Muhammad to greet solar eclipses.

In Bandung, West Java, Antara reported that prayers and special sermons were also conducted. Budi Darmawan, a lecturer at the Bandung Institute of Technology, gave a speech on the natural phenomenon and provided specially-made eyeglasses to enable the worshipers to watch the eclipse.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported from Cambodia that the 12th century Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious structure, was shrouded in darkness yesterday as the solar eclipse cast a rare shadow across a swath of south and southeast Asia.

The shadow, about 100 kilometers wide at most, then flitted over Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia, before racing across Vietnam, northern Malaysia and Indonesia. The central point of the eclipse fell just north of the Angkor Wat temple.

Interest in the rare phenomenon was heightened by superstitions and forecasts by Asian soothsayers who warned the eclipse could bring doom or disaster.

At Angkor Wat, where thousands of locals and foreigners gathered with chanting Buddhist monks and dancers to witness the event, the eclipse was deemed to bring good luck.

In Thailand's northwestern town of Mae Sot, groups of Buddhist monks and throngs of schoolchildren wearing special protective sunglasses peered into the sky as a ring of bright light circled the moon for the brief one-and-a-half-minute eclipse.

Hotels overflowed in Mae Sot on the eve of the eclipse, with those unable to find rooms camping out in tents on front lawns. Restaurants ran out of food and petrol stations ran dry.

In India, the eclipse disrupted life as millions stayed away from work to dodge the event's legendary ill effects.

Streets in the Indian capital New Delhi and other cities were deserted and shops remained shuttered as the moon's shadow raced across a 1,800-km-long band stretching from the Thar desert in the west to the Bay of Bengal in the east.

At the Taj Mahal, in the northern town of Agra, which experienced a partial eclipse, about 2,000 tourists watched as the pearly marble of the Moghul mausoleum took on a steely tint.

But heavy rain and clouds robbed millions of Filipinos of a view of the eclipse. Especially in Manila, people contented themselves with watching live television coverage of a partial eclipse of the sun over the Philippine cities of Davao and Cebu.