Throngs of skywatchers across North America gazed upward at a blackened sun in the midday dusk on Monday, celebrating with cheers, music and matrimony the first total solar eclipse to darken the continent in seven years. From a Mexican beach resort close to where the eclipse made landfall to the banks of the Ohio River and farther north beyond the roaring cascades of Niagara Falls at the U.S.-Canadian border, spellbound crowds reacted to the sight of “totality” with jaw-dropping expressions of awe and joy. In Russellville, Arkansas, a town of roughly 30,000 residents near the state’s only nuclear power plant, almost 400 couples tied the knot by the shadow of the moon in a mass wedding event dubbed “Elope and the Eclipse.” At least two weddings and one marriage proposal were known to have taken place among roughly 2,000 people who assembled at Niagara Falls State Park despite overcast skies. The dreary weather subdued the experience until clouds momentarily parted to reveal the last 30 seconds of totality, and the crowd went wild, cheering and shouting, “It’s so beautiful.”

Credit: Independent News Pakistan