A monk strikes a bell with a hammer Saturday to celebrate the upcoming New Year at a Buddhist temple in northern Japan, which was devastated March 11 by a tsunami. The bell was found in the debris, 30 meters away from the temple.

APIA, Samoa — Cheers erupted in the streets of Samoa on Sunday as New Year’s Eve revelers on the South Pacific island nation greeted the start of 2012 with extra excitement: For once, they were the first in the world to welcome the new year, rather than the last.

The celebrations had really begun a full 24 hours earlier, when Samoa and neighboring Tokelau hopped across the international date line, skipping Friday and moving instantly from Thursday to Saturday. The time-jump revelry that began as 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 31 spilled into the night, with Samoans and tourists crowding around beaches and pools to toast the start of the new year.

Samoa and Tokelau lie near the date line that zigzags vertically through the Pacific Ocean, and both sets of islands decided to realign themselves this year from the Americas side of the line to the Asia side, to be more in tune with key trading partners.

Things were slightly less festive in New Zealand, the next major country to welcome 2012, where torrential rains and thunderstorms canceled fireworks displays.

Elsewhere across the globe, people prepared to say goodbye to a year that was marked by upheaval and mass protests in several Arab countries, economic turmoil and a seemingly endless string of devastating natural disasters.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the new year would be more difficult than 2011 but that dealing with Europe’s debt crisis would bring the countries closer.

For Japan, 2011 was the year the nation was struck by a giant tsunami and earthquake that left an entire coastline destroyed, nearly 20,000 people dead or missing and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in meltdown.

“For me, the biggest thing that defined this year was the disaster in March,” said Miku Sano, 28, a nursing student in Fukushima city. “Honestly, I didn’t know what to say to these people, who had to fight sickness while living in fear about ever being able to go back home. The radiation levels in the city of Fukushima, where I live, are definitely not low, and we don’t know how that is going to affect our health in the future.”

People in Japan were expected to spend Saturday visiting shrines and temples, offering their first prayers for the year. The giant hanging bells at temples will ring 108 times to purify the world of evil and bring good luck.