Harold Camping predicted that the world was due to end on May 21 2011, starting at 6.00pm New Zealand time, and at Christmas Island at the same time.
As an Australian, I naturally thought of the island off the West Coast of Australia.
The Territory of Christmas Island is a territory of Australia in the Indian Ocean.
It is located 2,600 kilometres (1,600 miles) northwest of the Western Australian city of Perth, 360 km (220 miles) south of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, and 975 km (606 mi) ENE of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.
It has a population of 1,403 residents who live in a number of “settlement areas” on the northern tip of the island: Flying Fish Cove (also known as Kampong), Silver City, Poon Saan, and Drumsite.
The island’s geographic isolation and history of minimal human disturbance has led to a high level of endemism among its flora and fauna, which is of significant interest to scientists and naturalists.
63% of the island’s 135 square kilometres (52 sq mi) is an Australian national park.
There are large areas of primary monsoonal forest with the national park.
The distance between New Zealand and Christmas Island is 7513.7 km (4668.8 miles)
I thought ‘now that’s about 4 time zones that the doomsday event would have had to cover, back and forth.’
Then I had an Uh Hah moment: Oh, THAT Christmas Island….
Kiritimati or Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean is an atoll in the northern Line Islands and part of the Republic of Kiribati.
The island has the greatest land area of any coral atoll in the world, about 322 square kilometres (124 sq miiles) and its lagoon is about the same size.
The atoll is about 150 km (93 mi) in diameter, while the lagoon shoreline extends for over 48 km (30 mi).
Christmas Island comprises over 70% of the total land area of Kiribati, a country which encompasses 33 Pacific atolls and islands.
Kiritimati is 232 km (144 miles) north of the Equator, 6,700 km (4,200 miles) from Sydney, and 5,360 km (3,330 miles) from San Francisco. It is in the world’s farthest forward time zone, UTC+14, and also the first inhabited place on Earth to experience the New Year each year.
Kiritimati (Christmas Island) was discovered by Captain James Cook on Christmas Eve, 1777.
It was claimed by the United States under the Guano Islands Act of 1856, although little actual mining of guano has taken place.
During the 1950s at the height of the Cold War, both the US and Britain conducted a number of nuclear tests in the area.
More About The Australian Territory:
Christmas Island is notorious for the fact that the Australian Government interns illegal immigrants there while they wait for entry to the main land, or deportation back to their point of origin.
The major earthquakes that occur in relation to the island are political, with debate raging for at least the past decade over whether the detention center on the island should be used, or closed down!
Reports from the island state that although some detainees have escaped from time to time, none have been raptured. Which would be comforting news to Christians and Muslims alike, because the majority of detainees are in fact Muslim.
To have them take part in such a uniquely Christian event as the rapture would be unthinkable for both groups… wouldn’t it?
So hopefully that clears up any confusion about Christmas Island and time zones: there are two of them!
Obviously Mr Camping was right about one thing at least – there is a Christmas Island in the Pacific….
