00:00As the clock struck midnight, cascades of colours lit up the sky above Melbourne.
00:13More than half a million people gathered in the city to get a glimpse of the moment.
00:17It was wonderful, yeah.
00:20I loved it.
00:21Happy New Year.
00:22The way the end was, there's just different fireworks all throughout the air.
00:25It was a really good experience.
00:27We chose to soak in the last rays of 2024 by taking a cruise, dressing up and dancing
00:33before the early family-friendly fireworks across the city.
00:36I love this firework.
00:37Same!
00:38I was about to say that.
00:40In Flagstaff Gardens, revellers set up early to claim their spots, but the best view in
00:44the house was from mum and dad's shoulders.
00:47The crowd was calm for much of the evening as they waited patiently for the big moment.
00:52Many had travelled from far and wide to witness the occasion.
00:55We're from Switzerland, from Germany, Austria.
00:59We are from Roma.
01:00Buon anno!
01:02Emergency services say they were overwhelmingly pleased with the crowd's behaviour.
01:07We haven't seen very many serious injuries at all.
01:10But police still responded to dozens of assaults and made 14 arrests for weapon possession.
01:15Across the state, there were almost 300 fireworks-related incidents.
01:20Police seized a number of illegal fireworks, including at Safety Beach and Port Melbourne.
01:24We're really disappointed because it's really dry across the state at the moment, and we
01:28know from our friends at Fire Rescue Victoria that, in fact, they've had some fires started
01:32from fireworks over these last 24 hours.
01:36New Year celebrations were different this year for Apoorva Mali and Vivek Menon.
01:41At 1.20 this morning, their daughter Mariah was the first baby born for 2025.
01:46We got first of first, 2025, and we don't think there could be any better way to start
01:52your new year.
01:53A shared sense of new beginnings across the world.
Comments