Spain is getting ready for an unprecedented challenge: a series of three solar eclipses that will happen in three consecutive years and will be best viewed from the Iberian peninsula. In particular, the first two, on August 12, 2026, and on August 2, 2027, will be total solar eclipses, with Spain being the best place in Europe to watch them.
A website has already been launched detailing where and when the eclipses will be visible. The first one on August 12, 2026 will only be totally visible in the north of Spain and a small part of Iceland, but it could also cover more than 90% of the sun in the British islands, Mediterranean Europe, and North Africa. The second one on August 2, 2027 will be fully appreciated from the South of Spain, north of Africa and the Middle East. The third one in January 26, 2028 will also be visible from the north of South America, Central America, crossing the Atlantic and ending in the Iberian peninsula.
As a result, the Spanish government has created a committee involving 13 of the 22 ministries to coordinate the arrival of potentially hundreds of thousands of visitors to some very specific areas, in a very specific date, as reported by El País. The arrival of so many people could collapse the transport infrastructure, greatly surpass the accommodation capacity of some rural areas, cause shortage of combustible and multiply the usual dangers of the summer, like heat strokes or forest fires.
Those are just a few of the dangers that the mass arrival of visitors caused by a solar eclipse could happen if they are not planned in advance, something that the United States already suffered in 2017 and 2024. For example, the number of fatal car accidents increased the day of the 2017 eclipse, which prompted the US government to declared the state of emergency in some counties or states on the eclipse on April 8, 2024.
And that’s without counting the inherent health risk of solar eclipses: if you look at the sun directly, without protection, mainly the use of authorised and only authorised sunglasses, you could get irreparable damage in the eyes. A full year of divulgation and raising awareness, and ideally buying enough supply of authorised glassed to minimise dangers is beginning, for a trilogy of solar eclipses, something that most people will only experience once in their lifetime.
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