Solar eclipse 2024: Over 100 cases of eye damage in Canada [Video]

Eclipse watchers were warned of the dangers of looking directly at the sun ahead of the rare celestial event on April 8.

Nearly a month after the total solar eclipse, at least 160 cases of eye damage have been reported across Canada.

“There’s a fascination element to it and you can’t help but look, so that is a problem,” Dr. Mark Eltis, president of the College of Optometrists of Ontario, told CTV News. “And also even the glasses that were safe in theory, some of them, we don’t know about the quality of manufacturing.”

The rays aren’t any stronger during the eclipse than it would normally be, and people usually would find the sun too bright to look at, Eltis said, but some may have stared at the sun directly to witness the phenomenon. During the eclipse it gets dimmer, so the pupil dilates, he added.

“So you’re not only looking …