50 iconic images of 2022
From the devastating war in Ukraine to football's greatest night, here are the defining moments of 2022.
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic hogging the headlines in the last three years, 2022 is most remembered for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb 24. Scenes of devastation and death reminded the world of the impact of war. Climate change issues compelled policymakers to take swift action to avoid irreversible consequences. In Singapore, it was masks off and a relaxation of virus restrictions that saw crowds returning in throngs to malls and the city. Overseas travel exploded when international borders reopened, along with sky-high air ticket prices. The Straits Times Picture Desk curates a collection of the year’s most memorable images that encapsulate these events.
Jan 13
A car bursting into flames in Bartley Road in Singapore. The driver was ferrying her son to Maris Stella High School when she smelled something burning. She and her son managed to get out of the car before it exploded into flames a few minutes later.
ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG
Feb 7
French President Emmanuel Macron (right) meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in an effort to find common ground on Ukraine and Nato, at the start of a week of intense diplomacy over fears that Russia was preparing for an invasion of its pro-Western neighbour.
PHOTO: AFP
Feb 16
People lying in hospital beds outside the Caritas Medical Centre in Hong Kong at night, with the temperature falling. Hospitals were overwhelmed, with the city facing what was then its worst Covid-19 wave.
PHOTO: PETER PARKS/AFP
Feb 28
Hoshinoya Tokyo hotel staff demonstrating the Lantern Dining Experience, where lanterns made by Kojima Shouten, a shop in Kyoto, were used to shroud diners for mask-free dining amid the coronavirus pandemic, during a media event at the hotel in the Japanese capital.
PHOTO: PHILIP FONG/AFP
March 27
US actor Will Smith (right) slapping fellow actor Chris Rock onstage during the 94th Oscars in Hollywood, California. The slap was in response to Rock’s joke about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s bald head.
PHOTO: ROBYN BECK/AFP
April 1
People walking across the Causeway to Johor Bahru in the early hours, after the land borders between Singapore and Malaysia fully reopened at midnight. Of the 27,600 people who left Singapore via the Causeway or Second Link that day, 9,400 went on foot or by bus.
ST PHOTO: JASON QUAH
April 12
A Russian soldier patrolling the bombed-out Mariupol drama theatre as Russian troops intensified a campaign to take the strategic port city, part of a massive onslaught across eastern Ukraine.
PHOTO: ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP
May 9
Russian Ambassador to Poland Sergey Andreev after being splashed with red paint during a protest before a ceremony at the Soviet Military Cemetery in Warsaw, Poland, on the 77th anniversary of the 1945 Soviet victory against Nazi Germany.
PHOTO: WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP
June 7
A man looking through a gap in a barrier in a Shanghai residential area after China lifted a lockdown that was imposed to curb the Covid-19 outbreak.
PHOTO: ALY SONG/REUTERS
July 8
Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe lying on the ground after being shot during an Upper House election campaign in Nara, western Japan. He was fatally struck in the heart and died in hospital hours later.
PHOTO: KYODO via REUTERS
July 9
Protesters filling the President's House in Colombo, Sri Lanka, after the country’s then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled, amid an unprecedented economic crisis.
PHOTO: DINUKA LIYANAWATTE/REUTERS
July 14
Asylum-seeking migrants from Nicaragua pulling a migrant child under the border fence after crossing the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico at Eagle Pass, Texas.
PHOTO: GO NAKAMURA/REUTERS
July 20
Former US president Donald Trump (left) leaving the Church of St Vincent Ferrer in New York City after the funeral of his former wife, Ms Ivana Trump. With him were (from top left) his son Barron; Mr Trump’s wife Melania; Ms Kimberly Guilfoyle and her , the fiance Donald Jr, Mr Trump’s eldest son; and Mr Trump’s daughter Ivanka.
PHOTO: BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS
Sept 15
Pedestrians in London walking past a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II following her death, with Tower Bridge in the background. Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, who reigned for more than 70 years, died on Sept 8 at the age of 96.
PHOTO: CLODAGH KILCOYNE/REUTERS
Sept 19
A member of the Coldstream Guards walking past a sea of flowers during the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in London. The Queen was born in Mayfair, London, on April 21, 1926, and ascended the throne at the age of 25 on Feb 6, 1952, after the death of her father, King George VI.
PHOTO: RYAN PIERSE/GETTY IMAGES
Sept 21
Police officers detaining a man in Moscow during a protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of a partial mobilisation of civilians to fight in Ukraine. More than 1,300 people were arrested at demonstrations across Russia after the directive.
PHOTO: ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP
Oct 2
Items left strewn all over the stands and on the pitch at Kanjuruhan stadium in Malang, East Java province, Indonesia, a day after a riot and stampede following a football match. More than 130 people were killed after officers fired tear gas in the packed stadium on Oct 1 to quell a pitch invasion.
PHOTO: WILLY KURNIAWAN/REUTERS
Oct 8
Smoke billowing from a fire on Kerch Bridge – which links Crimea to Russia – after a truck exploded, igniting a huge fire and damaging the key bridge, Russia’s sole land link with Crimea, which it had annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Moscow vowed to find the perpetrators, without immediately blaming Ukraine.
PHOTO: AFP
Oct 26
Thousands heading towards Aichi cemetery in the Iranian city of Saqez, to mark 40 days since 22-year-old Mahsa Amini's death. Unrest has rocked Iran since Ms Amini died on Sept 16 following her arrest by the morality police in Teheran for allegedly breaching the country’s strict dress code rules for women.
PHOTO: UGC/AFP
Nov 24
Malaysia’s newly appointed Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim waving to supporters after a news conference in Sungai Long, Selangor. The Pakatan Harapan leader finally landed the country’s top political job after waiting in the wings for decades.
PHOTO: SADIQ ASYRAF/REUTERS
March 10
Cosplayer Dom Charland, dressed as Batman, posing on the Edge, the highest outdoor sky deck in the Western Hemisphere, at Hudson Yards in New York City.
PHOTO: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP
March 12
Hindu devotees taking part in the religious festival of Holi – also known as the Festival of Colours – inside a temple in Nandgaon village, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India.
PHOTO: ADNAN ABIDI/REUTERS
May 02
A woman holding a balloon as Indonesian Muslims perform Eid Al-Fitr prayers on Parangkusumo beach in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Muslims around the world celebrate Eid al-Fitr with their families with feasts to mark the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting.
PHOTO: ULET IFANSASTI/GETTY IMAGES
June 10
Dancers onstage before the start of a performance of the ballet Giselle in Lviv, Ukraine. The Lviv National Opera resumed ballet and opera performances in May 2022, after they were disrupted by Russia’s invasion of the country, which began on Feb 24.
PHOTO: PAULA BRONSTEIN/GETTY IMAGES
Aug 9
Spectators at Singapore’s Marina Bay floating platform taking photographs and waving flags as they watched the Red Lion parachutists descending from the sky during the National Day Parade.
ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
Aug 9
Second Warrant Officer Shirley Ng, one of the team of 10 Red Lion parachutists, descending at the Marina Bay floating platform at around 6pm, with a faint image of the moon in the background.
ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM
Sept 14
A bed in a room in Singapore left stained with bodily fluids after a person died there. It is the job of trauma cleaners Rahman Razali, 40, (right) and his childhood friend and assistant Syed Ali, 39, to clean up such rooms and furniture.
ST PHOTO: FELINE LIM
Jan 12
A damaged car amid rubble after the Rio das Velhas overflowed in Honorio Bicalho in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Heavy rain also caused landslides and floods elsewhere in the Minas Gerais region. Ten people died and more than 17,000 were displaced because of the effects of the weather.
PHOTO: PEDRO VILELA/GETTY IMAGES
Jan 31
Vehicles making their way past fallen trees in a wooded area outside the village of Edzell in Scotland. The area was hit by two storms – Malik and Corrie – in quick succession, leaving tens of thousands of residents without power.
PHOTO: JEFF J. MITCHELL/GETTY IMAGES
Feb 11
Colourful umbrellas standing out against the asphalt as people cross the road in the rain in Singapore’s Central Business District.
ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
Feb 14
Mr Ombeni Kulimushi having a playful moment with a chimpanzee at the Lwiro Primate Rehabilitation Centre, where he has worked for 14 years. The centre, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s eastern Bukavu town, takes care of orphaned and injured primates.
PHOTO: GUERCHOM NDEBO/AFP
March 24
Hands dipped in the waters at Changi Beach in Singapore emitting a blue glow because of dinoflagellates, marine microorganisms whose bioluminescence is activated when the waters they are in are disturbed.
ST PHOTO: SAMUEL ANG
June 18
Firefighters battling a wildfire in Pumarejo de Tera near Zamora, in north-western Spain, on the last day of an extreme heatwave that hit the country, with peaks of 43 deg C. One wildfire ravaged nearly 20,000ha of land.
PHOTO: CESAR MANSO/AFP
June 29
A large melt hole at the top of an iceberg in Disko Bay, Greenland. The icebergs in the area originate from Jakobshavn glacier. The enormous chunks of ice detach from the glacier, then float for years in the waters, and are eventually carried south by ocean currents.
PHOTO: ODD ANDERSEN/AFP
July 6
Residents looking at the flood waters from the overflowing Hawkesbury River in the Sydney suburb of Pitt Town. Thousands of Sydney residents were ordered to evacuate their homes as torrential rain battered the Australia’s largest city and flood waters inundated its outskirts.
PHOTO: MUHAMMAD FAROOQ/AFP
July 19
Two women dipping their heads into the fountain in Trafalgar Square in London to cool off. Temperatures were expected to hit 40 deg C in parts of Britain that week, prompting the Met Office to issue its first extreme heat red warning in England, from London and the south-east up to York and Manchester.
PHOTO: DAN KITWOOD/GETTY IMAGES
Aug 26
The Milky Way as seen in the Valle de la Luna in Chile’s Atacama desert, considered one of the driest places on earth. The extreme aridity there makes the desert one of the best places on the planet to get clear views of the night sky.
PHOTO: JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES
Sept 2
People sitting on a parched river bed in a section of the Yangtze River in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province.
PHOTO: AFP
Sept 23
Wildlife services workers in Tasmania checking the carcasses of almost 200 pilot whales after they were found beached the previous day. Almost all the whales died on the exposed, surf-swept beach on the rugged west coast of Tasmania. Rescuers were able to save only a few dozen survivors.
PHOTO: GLENN NICHOLLS/AFP
Sept 29
A TV journalist taking photos of boats damaged by Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers, Florida. The hurricane left much of coastal south-west Florida in darkness after it knocked out power supplies and brought catastrophic flooding to the area.
PHOTO: GIORGIO VIERA/AFP
Oct 7
A reindeer in a boreal forest north of the Arctic Circle, in Finnish Lapland, near Kaakkurilampi. Boreal forests encircle the Arctic and are in just as much danger from climate change as the Amazon.
PHOTO: AFP
Oct 8
Baker Lake in the municipality of East Bolton in Quebec, Canada, surrounded by trees with autumn foliage.
PHOTO: SEBASTIEN ST-JEAN/AFP
Nov 22
The waters off Singapore glowing blue again, after a similar occurrence earlier in 2022. The glow was spotted at Tanjong Beach in Sentosa this time, and as before, it was caused by a group of marine microorganisms called dinoflagellates, which emit light when the waters they are in are disturbed.
ST PHOTO: ALPHONSUS CHERN
Jan 1
French driver Mathieu Serradori and his co-pilot Loic Minaudier of the SRT Racing team in action during stage 1A of the Dakar Rally, from Jeddah to Ha’il, Saudi Arabia.
PHOTO: YOAN VALAT/EPA-EFE
June 22
Andrea Fuentes (right), the United States’ artistic swimming team’s head coach, dived into the water to save US artistic swimmer Anita Alvarez, who sank unconscious to the bottom of the pool at the end of her routine in the solo free artistic swimming finals of the World Aquatics Championships in Budapest.
PHOTO: OLI SCARFF/AFP
Aug 7
British diver Matthew Lee in action at the Commonwealth Games during the men’s 10m platform preliminary event at the Sandwell Aquatics Centre in Birmingham, England.
PHOTO: STEFAN WERMUTH/REUTERS
Sept 23
Tennis greats Roger Federer (left) and Rafael Nadal of Team Europe holding hands in an emotional moment while watching a video montage after their men’s doubles match, the final match of Federer's career at the Laver Cup tennis tournament in London.
PHOTO: ELLA LING/SHUTTERSTOCK
Nov 23
Germany’s first XI covering their mouths during a team picture ahead of their Qatar 2022 World Cup match against Japan in Doha. The gesture was a protest against Fifa after it threatened European teams with sanctions if they wore armbands symbolising diversity and tolerance.
PHOTO: INA FASSBENDER/AFP
Dec 18
Argentina’s national football team players, led by captain Lionel Messi (far right), celebrating winning the 2022 World Cup as their teammate Gonzalo Montiel scores during the penalty shoot-out to clinch football’s most prestigious title for their country.
PHOTO: MOLLY DARLINGTON/REUTERS
Dec 18
Argentina captain and forward Lionel Messi lifting the World Cup trophy after his side beat France in the final at Lusail Stadium in Doha, Qatar. Argentina won in the penalty shoot-out, taking home its third world cup win
PHOTO: FRANCK FIFE/AFP