Unlike the dinosaur, when the lady managed to put on her glasses, the eclipse was no longer there. Bad luck. A hundred years since the last solar eclipse is nothing, woman. However, others, at 7:15 p.m., were already seeing it and saying to each other: “look, there is already a spot…
Neither the racket eclipse, despite it being true that perhaps it has gotten a bit out of hand for all of us, nor the fomo eclipse, although it is also true that hundreds of thousands of people all over Spain have ended up jumping on the bandwagon out of fear of looking like…
All the expectations, curiosity, and hyperventilation culminated in what everyone expected: absolute darkness. There were no surprises. For 4 hours and 24 minutes, the eclipse traveled across the Earth from when it emerged over the Bering Sea until it disappeared, at 21:58, in the Atlantic Ocean. But it only took eight minutes of the lunar shadow’s path across the entire country for millions of viewers to stop their lives to watch the first total solar eclipse visible from Spain in the last hundred years.
The day has finally arrived. The total solar eclipse, the first in the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands in over 100 years, will test mobility on roads and highways this afternoon, with a focus on the AP-7, and the social response to an astronomical phenomenon turned into a great spectacle that almost no one wants to miss. Without recent precedents and few possible comparisons, today one of the great unknowns will be answered: will there be massive movements, seeking the best observation point in the path of totality, from Galicia to Mallorca, where the Moon will completely cover the Sun?
Mercedes López Romero, Ciudadanos deputy in the Andalusian Parliament, advises not to look at the eclipse even with protective glasses, and if they are children, even less so. Romero suffers from 90% blindness due to having stared directly at the sun during an eclipse when she was only 8 years old, without using any type of protection.
An extraordinary deployment of forces, with 700 Mossos d’Esquadra officers mobilized for the total solar eclipse and coordinated with the various local police forces, 180 from the Traffic unit, and also resources, with a helicopter permanently flying over the AP-7 south in Catalonia during the midday and afternoon of the astronomical phenomenon. The main concern of the Servei Català de Trànsit (SCT) is to prevent a major collapse on Catalonia’s main road infrastructure. With a solar eclipse that will reach totality this August 12 around 8:30 p.m. in the regions of Tarragona, Terres de l’Ebre, and Ponent (Lleida), a very significant increase in mobility is expected throughout the afternoon.
FACUA-Consumers in Action has warned that consumer protection authorities have ordered the withdrawal of six models of glasses for the solar eclipse due to the risk of eye injuries.
The FOMO (fear of missing out) is driving the already huge excitement to see the total solar eclipse the day after tomorrow, the first one that can be enjoyed in Spain in a century. Although it was predictable that it would happen, it worries the authorities and public managers because it could lead to collapses, last-minute displacements, and uncivil behavior. Many of those who criticized so much attention to the astronomical phenomenon are now trying, two days before the eclipse, to have a good plan to experience it.
The space agency NASA has landed in a village in Burgos that was abandoned for two decades to install its powerful telescopes with which to broadcast live to 10 million people the solar eclipse on August 12.
The great excitement generated by the total solar eclipse threatens to collapse roads, access to the best observation spots, and cause a disorderly invasion of natural spaces amid the general alert for the risk of forest fires. There is deep interest, but also uncertainty, because no one knows for sure the final scale of the mobilization. In the middle of the tourist season and with accommodations already full, prices soar and opportunists and scams appear. Tourist behavior will also be key, in addition to internal mobility, with locals and enthusiasts moving at the last minute if bad weather appears.
