In Samoa, Tonga and Kiribati it is already 2022

The year 2021 says goodbye. Billions of people today welcome 2022 and hope that everything will get better. The new year has already begun in the South Seas.

In Sydney, Australia, the New Year starts at 2 p.m. But hours beforehand it is greeted with fireworks.

Wendell Teodoro / Getty

(dpa)

The residents of the islands of Samoa, Tonga and Kiribati were the first in the world to welcome the New Year at 11 a.m. CET. Unlike last year, when public fireworks were canceled due to the corona pandemic, firecrackers were again allowed to be shot in the sky in Samoa. According to the tourism authority, the island nation had five pyrotechnics experts flown in from New Zealand to install the fireworks.

In the Tonga archipelago, the forces of nature did not rest on New Year’s Eve either: the authorities have been warning against approaching the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano since Christmas. The mountain of fire, which last erupted in 2014, is active again and is spewing ash and gas into the air.

Because of their remote position, Samoa, Tonga and Kiribati have so far got through the corona crisis very lightly: In total, only half a dozen corona infections were recorded in the three island states. The borders of the Polynesian archipelagos have been largely closed to foreigners since the beginning of the pandemic.

At 12 p.m. CET, the year 2022 began and was celebrated in New Zealand.

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