Rio de Janeiro to welcome 2016 with Olympic theme

The traditional New Year's Eve celebration on Rio de Janeiro's world-famous Copacabana beach will have a Summer Olympics theme this year, with 2,000 samba school drummers joining the festivities.

The Brazilian city, which is hosting the Summer Games next year, will be rocked by 30 towers amplifying the sound of the drums along Copacabana's four kilometres (2.5 miles) to mark the centennial of the official registration of the first samba song, reports Efe.

The centennial will be marked on November 27, 2016.

Composers Ernesto "Donga" dos Santos and Mauro de Almeida filed for the copyright on November 27, 1916, of "Pelo Telefone" (On the Telephone), which was recorded a few months later and came out just before the 1917 Carnival.

Drummers will pound out a beat at the end of the 16-minute fireworks display on New Year's Eve on Copacabana, where more than 1 million people are expected to gather to ring in 2016.

The fireworks display will be staged by Spain's Igual, which said it planned to use 34,000 shells with 13 different colours to celebrate the Summer Olympics.