AFP | Burgos

Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com

One of nature's greatest spectacles -- a rare total solar eclipse -- cast its shadow yesterday, briefly turning day into night in Russia's remote Arctic north and western Iceland before heading towards mainland Europe.

The Moon first blotted out the Sun at the northernmost tip of mainland Russia at about 1700 GMT, leaving only the shimmering glow of its outer corona.

It raced south through parts of Greenland before total darkness fell over Keflavik, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) southwest of Iceland's capital, Reykjavik at 1747 GMT.

Reykjavik has not seen a total solar eclipse since 1433.

It was next due to hit mainland Europe, which has not experienced the dramatic natural phenomenon in 20 years, arcing diagonally in a narrow path from the northwestern Atlantic coast of Spain to the Mediterranean Sea in the south, where it is expected to fade at about 1830 GMT.

Spain has not witnessed a total solar eclipse in more than a century.

"It's the first time and it's the last time, the only time I'm going to see an eclipse," Yenny Guevera, a 50-year-old Peruvian living in France, told AFP excitedly in Burgos, northwest Spain.

"I like painting and I really like light," said Mercedes Bua, a 51-year-old engineer awaiting the eclipse's passage in a park in Colmenar Viejo, some 30 kilometres (19 miles) north of Madrid.

"So I find it interesting to see how it's going to look."

Supplies of special viewing glasses were in high demand, with huge crowds turning out to watch a partial eclipse across Europe, with the event also visible in Canada, the northern United States and northwest Africa.

The partial eclipse began in parts of northern Spain shortly after 1730 GMT, prompting gasps from waiting crowds and applause from South Korean tourists in a field in Lodoso, near Burgos, an AFP reporter said.

"It's starting! It's starting!" said a group of young people in Colmenar Viejo, in the Madrid region. "How wonderful!" said one woman in the crowd.