Asia turns off lights for Earth Hour

Australia's Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House were plunged into darkness today for the annual Earth Hour campaign, leading a global effort to raise awareness about climate change.

In a twist to this year's Earth Hour, Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers will observe from the International Space Station countries around the world turn off the lights for 60 minutes from 8:30pm local time and post photos.

From Sydney's sparkling harbour to Egypt's Tahrir Square and New York's Empire State Building, thousands of cities will go dark when the switches are flicked in some 150 countries and territories.

"From the Sydney Opera House it was fantastic," said Marni Ryan, from organiser WWF Australia. "We had the skyline of Sydney all out."

The Pacific island nation of Samoa was the first to make the symbolic gesture, with New Zealand's city landscapes later dramatically darkened as lights on buildings such as Auckland's Sky Tower were cut.

In Australia, where the event was conceived, harbourside buildings went dark, along with most big office buildings as some Sydneysiders picnicked on the harbour foreshore by moonlight.

Japan's Tokyo Tower interrupted its sunset-to-midnight lighting to take part, as orgnanisers said the Earth Hour was an opportunity to pray for last year's earthquake and tsunami disaster.

But the just completed 634-metre Tokyo Sky Tree, the world's tallest communications tower, loomed with blinking lights as it prepared to open to the public in May.