World welcomes New Year amid blizzard, flood and blasts

NEW YORK/SYDNEY/LONDON - Revellers embraced the New Year with high spirit and parties across the globe amid bad weather as well as threat of terror strikes and bomb blast in some parts.

Flood and the threat of storms failed to dampen the New Year bash in Australia as thousands of people flocked for celebration in Melbourne, Sydney and other parts despite soaring temperature.

More than one million people gathered in Sydney to watch what the organisers said the world’s biggest New year’s eve fireworks.

The Bureau of Meteorology prediction of high winds and possible storms threatened to delay the city’s fireworks display, The Age reported.

The seven tonnes of pyrotechnics went up in blazes of colourful smoke on and around the Harbour Bridge. The weather was warm and the skies clear for what firework fans said was the best show since the close of the Sydney Olympics in 2000, according to the DPA.

Thousands of Australians usherd in the New Year from evacuation centres after the worst floods in 50 years put half the east coast state of Queensland under water.

Around 200,000 have been forced to flee their homes as torrential rain since Christmas Day has inundated an area the size of France and Germany combined, the DPA reported.

New York’s world famous Times Square witnessed a huge crowd gathered to watch the giant glitter ball drop amid stepped-up security in the wake of terror alert by the intelligence agencies.

A major terror attack was thwarted at the Times Square when a Pakistani-born US citizen planted his explosive-laden SUV in the New York City’s busy shopping centre in May 2010.

The latest version of the New Year’s Eve ball was a 5,386-kg geodesic sphere measuring 3.7 metres in diameter. The Times Square celebration dates back to 1904. The custom of a lit ball to mark the countdown was started three years later by an electrician of the New York Times newspaper.

The celebration on the New Year eve also included performances by Backstreet Boys and Elvis Crespo.

A massive thunderstorms and tornadoes claimed at least five lives in the south and central US Friday.

Moscow witnessed snowfall as residents watched fireworks bursting over the Kremlin, Saint Basil’s Cathedral and Red Square.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at midnight delivered his annual New Year’s speech to the nation with an emphasis on the “new Russia and youth” and wished his compatriots love and happiness, RIA Novoti reported.

In Britain, the giant London Eye ferris wheel was lit up in a shower of fireworks over the Thames river.

In Berlin, up to one million flocked to the famous Brandenburg Gate for an extravaganza including a 14-minute laser and fireworks show set to songs, including “Moon River” and the operatic aria “Nessun Dorma”, and a performance by US celebrity David Hasselhoff, who stepped in when British singer Bonnie Tyler had to bow out due to illness.

Blizzard, snow and avalanche crippled normal life in Japan, causing traffic rush during New Year holiday and casualties in some parts of the country.

Four men on patrol at a ski resort in the town of Kofu, Tottori Prefecture in western Japan were killed in an avalanche Friday, Xinhua reported quoting officials.

The New Year celebrations were marred by bomb blasts in Nigeria and Egypt. At least 21 people were killed in both the blasts.

In Nigeria, at least 11 people were killed in bombing attacks on the market in Abuja, while 10 people were killed in a blast outside a church in the north Egyptian city of Alexandria.