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New Year’s Eve fireworks erupt over Sydney’s iconic Harbour Bridge and Opera House to welcome 2020. A dazzling display of fireworks lit up the night sky over Sydney to mark the first minutes of 2020, with flags flying at half mast on the Sydney Harbour Bridge for victims of the massive bushfires that have scorched south-eastern Australia. One million revellers roared from the foreshore as 36,000 individual fireworks popped, cracked and whirled over the harbour at midnight to welcome the new year. The show was broadcast to an estimated 1 billion people around the world. Australians debated for days over whether the pyrotechnics show should go ahead given the ongoing wildfire crisis, which has so far left 12 dead and destroyed more than 1,000 homes over the past six weeks. Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, who ignored more than a quarter of a million signatures on a petition to cancel the fireworks display, said spectators had donated more than half a million dollars towards the bushfire crisis by 10 pm (1100 GMT), the Sydney Morning Herald reported. (AFP)
