Major landmarks switch off lights for Earth Hour

A global blackout took place for Earth Hour on Saturday which saw some of the world's best known landmarks disappear from city skylines.

The Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building and Buckingham Palace were among than 350 landmarks that turned their lights off between 8.30pm and 9.30pm GMT.

The Palace of Westminster, The Shard, The Ritz hotel, Old Trafford and Edinburgh Castle were among the famous buildings across the UK to turn off their lights.

Earth Hour was founded by WWF in Sydney in 2007, and is designed to increase awareness about energy consumption and environmental issues.

Nearly 10.5 million people in the UK participated in the global blackout for this year’s Earth Hour, which included 178 countries.

World renowned landmarks including the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Tokyo Tower in Japan also participated in Saturday’s blackout.

Speaking ahead of the event, the WWF said: "Earth Hour is an annual global celebration where people and iconic landmarks switch off their lights for one hour to show they care about the future of our planet… It's a symbolic and spectacular lights out display with a big message - we want to protect the future of our planet."