Tourists and scientists poured onto remote and mysterious Easter Island yesterday to watch a rare solar eclipse, a mixed blessing for the tiny Pacific community.
An estimated 4,000 tourists, scientists, photographers, filmmakers and journalists flocked to the remote Chilean outpost of only 160km², doubling the population of an island that already suffers from water pollution and deforestation.
Conditions are anything but normal on Easter Island, deemed by astronomers the best place to witness yesterday’s alignment of Sun, Moon and Earth for a fleeting four minutes and 41 seconds.
Some forecasts, however, warned of cloudy skies.
The total solar eclipse was due to begin when the umbra or shadow fell on the South Pacific about 700km southeast of Tonga, veteran NASA eclipse specialist Fred Espanak said.
It was then due to zip in an easterly arc across the Pacific, eventually cloaking Easter Island and its mysterious giant statues. Parts of the globe were due to be plunged into daytime darkness along a narrow corridor 11,000km long across the South Pacific.
Superstition has forever been part of the cult of the eclipse. Throughout history, awe and dread — the birth or death of kings, victories or defeats, bumper harvests or gnawing hunger — have always attended that moment when the Moon slides in front of the Sun and darkness briefly cloaks the Earth at daytime.
Easter Island Governor Pedro Edmunds Paoa told reporters the island “has the capacity to absorb this number of tourists,” similar to the influx in the austral summer in January. However, authorities have increased security, especially around key heritage sites, including the 3,000-year-old large stone statues that put Easter Island, a far-flung ethnic Polynesian point of reference, on the world culture map.
The island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site inhabited mainly by ethnic Polynesians, was strained even before the eclipse by a growing number of visitors who choose to stay indefinitely and an increase in the non-Aboriginal population.
Chile’s government last year proposed a law to establish immigration controls on Easter Island and limit the number of tourists to try to protect the local population and fragile ecosystem.
The streets of the capital Hanga Roa were filled with craft fairs and merchants selling native craft items and eclipse souvenirs.
Hanga Roa Mayor Luz del Carmen Zasso said officials had taken “all measures to protect the heritage and the environment.”
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