NEW YORK: Thousands of people gathered in parks and open spaces in different areas of New York to witness the solar eclipse and watched the eclipse with special glasses.
The eclipse started from the Pacific coast of Mexico which passed through Texas and 13 other US states and moved to Canada.
The sun began to hide behind the moon and at one stage the sun was visible in a crescent shape like the moon.
The Statue of Liberty in New York also plunged into darkness. The time of total darkness during the eclipse was only four minutes.
The current event was different from previous solar eclipse events as areas where the solar eclipse occurred had a population of 44 million.
At least 30.1 million people witnessed the solar eclipse without leaving their homes. Besides, millions of people had traveled from far and wide areas to be in the path of the solar eclipse.
According to US officials, 4 to 5 million people traveled from different cities to watch the solar eclipse.
This year, for the first time, millions of people traveled on a single day, which resulted in a benefit of $I.5 billion dollars to the US economy. The solar eclipse of four minutes and nine seconds was much longer as compare to previous one. There was great excitement among US citizens on this solar eclipse and concert-like scenes were witnessed in many places.
