US President-elect Biden's supporters erupt in joy across nation

Honking of car horns and spontaneous whoops from pedestrians erupted in Washington - the nation's capital - moments after cable news networks called the US presidential election for Democrat Joe Biden at 11.24am on Saturday.

Blocks from the White House, an ongoing rally to count every vote turned into a celebration of the victory won by Mr Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris.

Thousands of supporters spilt onto the streets wearing masks and Biden-Harris shirts. They held up hastily made signs as they danced and gleefully posed for photos before an inflatable - and admittedly unflattering - giant balloon caricature of President Donald Trump.

These scenes of spontaneous celebrations were mirrored in cities across the United States, where voters had been waiting anxiously for votes to be counted and the race to be called for over three days.

Trump supporters, too, gathered at state capitals across the country, chanting "This isn't over!" and "Stop the steal" as they carried American flags, Trump banners and, in some cases, guns, Reuters reported.

Like the President, many did not accept the defeat and echoed his claims - which even some Republican allies and lawyers have called baseless - that the Democrats had rigged the election and voter fraud was rampant.

Mr Biden, who campaigned on a promise to unite the fractured country, will have the enormous task of trying to bridge the political divide.

Addressing supporters of Mr Trump in his acceptance speech on Saturday, Mr Biden said he understood their disappointment and extended an olive branch: "Let's give each other a chance. It's time to put away the harsh rhetoric."

He added: "To make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. They are not our enemies. They are Americans."

It is now a time to heal, he said. "Let this grim era of demonisation in America begin to end, here and now."

Americans also celebrated Vice-President-elect Harris' historic win. The 56-year-old California senator made history as the first woman, the first black woman, the first woman of South Asian descent, and the first daughter of immigrants ever to be elected to the vice-presidency in America.

In Ms Harris' acceptance speech, she paid tribute to the women who came before her and made her victory possible.

She honoured her late mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a breast cancer researcher and civil rights activist who moved from India to America at the age of 19, whom she called "the woman most responsible for my presence here today".

"I am thinking about her and about the generations of women, black women, Asian, white, Latina, Native American women who throughout our nation's history have paved the way for this moment. Women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and liberty and justice for all," she said.

"Tonight, I reflect on their struggle, their determination and the strength of their vision, to see what can be unburdened by what has been. I stand on their shoulders," said Ms Harris, wearing a pantsuit in "suffragette" white in a nod to the female activists who fought a century ago for the right for women to vote.