2024 was a year of political divisions, floods, droughts, earthquakes and spectacular visual and sound effects.

Kiingi Tuheitia is carried to Taupiri Maunga after his death, age 69. His successor, his daughter Queen Nga Wai Hono i te po Paki, stands behind the coffin. Photo / Getty Images

Act’s Treaty Principles Bill sparked a nationwide hīkoi to Parliament in November. Photo / Getty Images

Republicans queue outside Madison Square Gardens to attend a Donald Trump rally in October. Photo / Reuters

The first presidential debate between Trump and Democratic late entrant Kamala Harris was watched around the world, including by cellphone in China. Photo / Reuters

Palestinian girl Sila Houso at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza after an Israeli attack on the area’s last remaining medical facility in August. Photo / Getty Images

Surrounded by smoke from a flare, Israelis protest in May over their government’s failure to free hostages seized by Hamas in southern Israel in October 2023. Photo / Getty Images

Roshi village in Nepal after monsoon floods and landslides killed more than 230 people in September. Photo / Getty Images

Unprecedented drought in northern Brazil exposed sandbanks in the Amazon River and left half a million children facing food and water shortages and limited school access by November. Photo / Getty Images

A Peruvian migrant and his 1-year-old daughter wait at the US border after Texas introduced a new law in March allowing the state to arrest and deport illegal immigrants. Photo / Getty Images

A collapsed building in Wajima, central Japan, after earthquakes in January killed 92. Photo / Getty Images

The aurora borealis seen from Kiruna, Sweden, in March. Photo / Getty Images

Lava flows from a volcano near Grindavik, Iceland, in May, forcing hundreds to evacuate. Photo / Getty Images

An injured boy is taken to hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in February. Gang violence in the Caribbean country killed more than 5600 during the year. Photo / Getty Images

Taylor Swift in Cardiff in June during her “The Eras’’ tour. Spanning 149 shows over 21 months, it became the first to gross more than US$1 billion in revenue. Photo / Getty Images

The NZ Black Ferns rugby team rewrite royal protocol by sharing hugs with King Charles at Buckingham Palace in September. Photo / Reuters

The spiral galaxy NGC6872 is captured by Nasa’s Chandra X-ray observatory interacting with a smaller galaxy, to its left, in July. Photo / NASA

Brazil and Argentina meet in a blind football semifinal in September at the Paralympics in Paris. Photo / Getty Images

A blessing during the Feast of San Antonio Abad, celebrating the patron saint of animals, in Mexico in January. Photo / Reuters