Britons Queue Hours for Rare Eclipse Glasses at £9.99

Desperate Britons stood in lines through the night just to grab solar eclipse glasses for today's show. Dozens of TikTok videos now document shoppers forming long queues outside London corner shops. Some of these lines stretched hundreds of metres into the darkness. Crowds waited patiently for more than three hours to buy the essential safety gear. One car pulled up at a Whitechapel shop around 10:20pm, delivering an extra 10,000 pairs that landed at Heathrow airport just moments before. Shoppers could only take five pairs each, priced at £9.99 per unit.

These special glasses filter out almost all visible light and dangerous ultraviolet rays. Ordinary sunglasses fail to protect eyes during this event. Experts have warned that staring directly at the sun causes serious permanent damage. This warning triggered the last-minute rush across the country. Thousands of people look skywards as the moon passes across the sun tonight. Securing a pair has become a frantic race against time for many families.

One video shows a queue snaking around a corner in east London with at least 600 people waiting. The winding line included children, cyclists holding takeaway food, and someone dragging a suitcase. Another girl called her three-hour wait a funny date idea while reading a book in the crowd. People cheered as they left shops waving their new glasses in the air. This scramble reminds some of the toilet roll panic from the pandemic era. Sellers are surely making money off this dash for safety equipment. Many turned to Reddit forums asking where else to find a pair. Some residents resigned themselves to missing the event entirely because everyone wanted one.

You won't get them anywhere.

Some folks might grab their safety glasses from the previous solar eclipse back in 1999. Experts say this is a bad idea.

These old pieces of gear have likely degraded over time. They offer zero real protection now.

Using worn-out viewers puts your eyes at serious risk. Permanent damage and vision loss are waiting in the wings.

If you plan to watch the eclipse, buy new glasses made for the job. Look for items bearing the ISO 12312-2 safety standard.

Hundreds of people queued at Plassey Retail Park near Wrexham yesterday just to get sold-out solar viewing glasses. Similar lines formed at an outlet in Old Spitalfields Market in east London.

Dr Greg Brown, an astronomer at Royal Observatory Greenwich, spoke to the Daily Mail about the danger. He noted that film on older glasses can break down years after manufacture.

He advised using only eclipse glasses made within the last decade. Do not rely on anything older than that.

Experts stress you must never look at the sun with your naked eyes during any part of the event. That rule applies even when the moon blocks most of the disk.

Mohamed Elalfy, a consultant ophthalmologist and president of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, explained why this matters so much. He said the retina has no pain receptors inside it.

People will not feel damage as it happens. Symptoms might not show up for several hours later.

Blurry vision is one sign to watch for. Others include a central blind spot or dark spot in your sight. Distorted vision and reduced color perception can also occur. Increased sensitivity to light is another common complaint.

Some people recover over weeks or months. Others are left with permanent visual impairment forever. The risk is simply too high to ignore old gear.