New Year extravagantly celebrated around the world

New Year’s celebrators around the world gathered on Wednesday night to wave goodbye to 2014 and welcome 2015. Australia’s Christmas Island, located on the international date line, was the first location to welcome 2015, but the first major celebrations occurred in Wellington, New Zealand, and Sydney, Australia, which held its traditional fireworks display in front of Harbour Bridge. Here, celebrations took on a sombre tone when they included a tribute to the two hostages killed during a siege in a Sydney café in December.

Dubai decided to go all out with its celebrations, firing 479,651 firework shells in a six-minute display- earning a Guinness World Record title for the largest firework display.

Around a million people crammed into New York City’s Times Square to welcome the new year with hugs, kisses and cheers after the giant, glittering New Year’s Eve ball descended, blanketing the crowd with a ton of confetti as Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” blared on loudspeakers.

Over a million people gathered on Rio de Janeiro’s Copocabuna beach, most of them dressed in all white, a Brazilian tradition to bring purification and a peaceful year. A massive fireworks display also took place here, with fireworks being blasted from boats on the Atlantic Ocean.

In the war-torn Iraqi capital of Baghdad, authorities ordered a one-off lifting of the overnight curfew that has been in place for over a decade, allowing people to celebrate till late in the streets. However, authorities closed off commercial streets to vehicles in the city’s centre as a precaution against potential suicide attacks by Islamic State militants. 

A notable exception to the global New Year’s cheer was Indonesia, a nation still in shock after the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501 in the Java Sea on Sunday, with 162 people on board. In Jakarta, Indonesia, New Year’s celebrations took on a muted tone and included prayers for the victims of the crash. Celebrations were banned in Surabaya, the city from which the flight had taken off and the home of several of the victims, and residents there held a candlelight vigil instead.