Easter Island braces for total solar eclipse

CHILE: Tourists and scientists poured onto remote and mysterious Easter Island ahead of Sunday’s solar eclipse, a mixed blessing of sorts for the tiny Pacific outpost.

An estimated 4,000 tourists, scientists, photographers, filmmakers and journalists flocked to the Chilean island of only 160 square kilometers (60 square miles) Saturday, doubling the population of the barren isle that already suffers from water pollution and deforestation.

Conditions are anything but normal on Easter Island, deemed by astronomers the best place to witness Sunday’s alignment of sun, moon and Earth for a fleeting four minutes and 41 seconds. Some weather forecasts, however, warn of cloudy skies — potentially dashing hopes of a clear view here. The total solar eclipse will begin at 1815 GMT, when the umbra or shadow falls on the South Pacific about 700 kilometers (440 miles) southeast of Tonga, according to veteran NASA eclipse specialist, Fred Espanak.

It will then zip in an easterly arc across the Pacific, eventually cloaking Easter Island and its mysterious giant statues at around 2011 GMT.

Parts of the globe will be plunged into daytime darkness along a narrow corridor some 11,000 kilometers (6,800 miles) long across the South Pacific.

And the eclipse, in Tahiti for example, has a chance of upstaging even the start of the World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands in South Africa at 1830 GMT.

Hanga Roa, Sunday, AFP