Cloud and rain obscured the view for many, but those who fully saw the light-and-darkness show were awestruck.

``Imagine what our ancestors must have felt like when it happened to them 2,000 years ago,'' said astronomer David Hughes as the eclipse snuffed out the light at Land's End in southern England, where the eclipse first cast its shadow on land.

In Isfahan, where the U.S. space agency NASA said there was the best viewing, Iran's religious leaders directed Moslems to perform the ``namaz-e ayat,'' a special prayer offered at times of natural phenomena to celebrate God's glory and power.

Thousands of Iranians and tourists poured into the majestic central square of the trading city to view the eclipse.

As the sun was blotted out, the crowd erupted in whistles, applause and shouts of ``Allahu Akbar!'' (God is Greatest).

The eclipse began over the Atlantic Ocean nearly three hours earlier when the shadow of the moon completely covered the sun at 0931 GMT off Canada's east coast near Nova Scotia.

It set off a 1,500 miles per hour (2,400 kph) race across the eclipse's path that would end only when the sun sank in the Bay of Bengal off India three hours later.

At 1010 GMT it reached Britain's Scilly Isles and then within a minute swept ashore on the English mainland at the picturesque county of Cornwall.

Weather forecasters had been gloomy about prospects of seeing the phenomenon in Cornwall, but at the last moment the clouds parted to produce two minutes and six seconds of magic.

People cheered, wept and popped champagne corks as an eerie shadow crept across the sun, darkness fell and the horizon glowed. The temperature plummeted up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

The phenomenon was repeated in the eclipse's 70-mile (110 km) wide path of totality across Europe.

In Paris, traffic stopped and office blocks emptied as hundreds of thousands poured into avenues, parks and open spaces under the Eiffel Tower and Tuileries gardens.

Many laughed at fashion designer Paco Rabanne's apocalyptic predictions that the Russian space station Mir would crash into the French capital at the time of the eclipse.

At the Bucharest zoo in Romania, birds and monkeys returned to their quarters preparing for the night. But minutes later, they went out again, disoriented as a sliver of sun reappeared.

Romania's state news agency said tourists in Black Sea resorts used their bare hands to catch thousands of disoriented fish swimming in shallow waters.

The point of greatest eclipse -- as the moon's axis passes closest to earth -- fell on the Romanian town of Rimnicu Vilcea for two minutes and 27 seconds but clouds spoiled the view for thousands who gathered there.

There were huge traffic jams in Europe -- some in Germany as long as 50 km (30 miles) -- as motorists stopped to look at the eclipse.

In Berlin, a 24-year-old German was a victim of the eclipse when he was severely burned after he climbed a power pylon to get a good view and touched the 20,000-volt electricity cable.

British hospital authorities said 100 calls were received from people who looked at the eclipse with the naked eye.

Phones went unanswered at financial trading rooms throughout Europe as dealers joined in the rush to see the eclipse.

``Everyone's gone to look at the eclipse,'' said a single staff member left on the trading floor of a European bank in London.

In Serbia, the streets of Belgrade were virtually deserted as people who suffered 11 weeks of NATO air strikes heeded government warnings to stay inside and draw the curtains, or used it as an excuse to take a day off work.

The weekly magazine Nin said the eclipse was the only natural phenomenon in which Serbia, increasingly isolated under hardline President Slobodan Milosevic, ``is equal to others.''

U.S. and British warplanes patrolled the skies of northern Iraq despite a request by Iraq to put the flights on hold for a day so Iraqis and scientists from Egypt, Libya and Syria could watch the eclipse in safety.

Most Lebanese heeded government warnings to stay home during the four-minute eclipse, which generated widespread panic in Lebanon where it was described as a precursor to the Apocalypse.

Some devout Moslems flocked into mosques for special eclipse prayers to ward off the event's dire consequences. Others said they had barricaded themselves in their homes to avoid even looking at the sun's rays.