From Canada to China, millions around the world are preparing for the fateful day of December 21, 2012, which many believe marks the end of a 5,125-year cycle known as the Long Count on the Mayan calendar. As doomsday "preppers" rush to stock their homes with bottled water, food rations, gas masks and weapons for an impending apocalypse, nobody is preparing for the end of the world in Mexico or Guatemala; instead, they're bracing for a tsunami of spiritual visitors.
Mayan doomsday 2012
Photos: Doomsday preparations... and celebrations
20 Dec 2012
Inspired by Hollywood doomsday film ‘2012’ and the 2004 Asian tsunami, Chinese furniture maker Liu Qiyuan has constructed spherical emergency shelters in a village in Langfang, Hebei. Liu believes his structures could save his family from big floods, earthquakes or solar storms. Photo: AFP
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![]( "A man dressed in an Aztec costume performs a dance during a ceremony to mark the close of the 13th bak'tun outside the Pre Columbian archeological zone of Teotihuacan on December 21, 2012. Thousands of mystics, hippies and tourists celebrated in the sunshine of southeastern Mexico on Friday as the Earth survived a day billed by doomsday theorists as the end of the world and a new era began for the Maya people. Photo: Reuters")
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![]( "Inspired by Hollywood doomsday film ‘2012’ and the 2004 Asian tsunami, Chinese furniture maker Liu Qiyuan has constructed spherical emergency shelters in a village in Langfang, Hebei. Liu believes his structures could save his family from big floods, earthquakes or solar storms. Photo: AFP")
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Photos20 Dec 2012
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