The appointment comes a month after parliament elected Shahbaz Sharif as prime minister
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Abu Dhabi will ring in the New Year with blazing fireworks etching 'Happy New Year 2019' on the skyline over the corniche. The record-breaking fireworks display will lit the midnight sky when the clock strikes 12, turning 2018 into history.
What goes into making this spectacular pyrotechnics display is as breathtaking as the show itself. Six tonnes of gunpowder, 30,000 shots, three boats fitted with giant cranes to hold 40-metre high sky towers, a 25-member expert team and a highly-advanced pyrotechnics system - all will be put to good use for a "fireworks display like never before".
Khaleej Times got an exclusive sneak-peak into the preparations as the workers were toeing floats loaded with gunpowder to the boats anchored in the backwaters on the corniche.
"We have three boats each fitted with a 40-metre high sky tower. And each tower holds 12,000 shots," Wissam El Akkawi, CEO/Founder of Igual Gulf Fireworks, told Khaleej Times.
Giant cranes weighing 1,000 tonnes are used to hold the towers fitted on the boats. Akkawi said there are two elements to the fireworks display. One is a 10-minute synchronised musical show, which will see fireworks dancing vertically all over the erected towers.
"The second element and the most challenging is to have the sky letters that will display the writing 'Happy New Year 2019' in the sky. And that will be the first time in the GCC, and a new record for Abu Dhabi," said Akkawi from Lebanon, who has been in the fireworks business for almost 25 years. "We are using an advanced wireless system to shoot the letters 30 metres high into the sky facing the corniche. The whole writing will stretch 800 metres across the corniche and will be clearly visible."
There will be a countdown with numbers lighting up the sky as a prelude to the actual display. "Three hours before the show we start testing our equipment with a fake show in the computer. This is to ensure that all the points and modules are impeccably precise. And in the last three minutes, we just pray that everything goes well," said Akkawi.
According to him, a total of 30,000 shots will be fired - all synchronised and designed to create a mesmerising visual effect that will ring in the New Year with a bang.
Blasting into the New Year
>Six tonnes of gunpowder
>30,000 shots of fireworks
>3 boats
>40-metre sky towers
>3 giant cranes weighing 1,000 tonnes
>25-member expert team
anjana@khaleejtimes.com
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