Crowds grab chance to view rare eclipse

NAIROBI -- From northern Portugal to the heart of Africa, crowds gathered yesterday on roofs, hilltops, and in city squares for a rare chance to see a spectacular solar eclipse.

In this African capital, people prayed when the moon masked the sun like a black plate, leaving a bright rim. In Madrid, cheers went up at Spain's first annular eclipse in more than two centuries.

''It may be a sign of the end of the world or some other great disaster. This is what we believe," said 82-year-old Tigray tribesman Tebared Tsegahun in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

''I don't know what you members of the new generation say about it," he said, but ''We will keep praying to survive the danger that will come after it."

The eclipse traveled along a narrow band across almost half the planet. After a 3 1/2-hour stretch traversing northern Portugal and Spain, it moved south across mostly deserted parts of Africa, encompassing Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia.

During an annular eclipse, the moon travels between the Earth and the sun, leaving a bright, fiery rim. The moon was too small to blot out the sun completely, as in a total eclipse, because its elliptical orbit has taken it too far from the Earth.

The rim of fire that appears around the moon glows brighter than the corona that is seen during a total eclipse.

The eclipse started over the North Atlantic at 4:41 a.m. EDT, passing over Madrid, central Sudan, southern Somalia, and the Indian Ocean.