Virus, unrest highlight AP's pictures of the year in Asia

SEOUL, South Korea -- The second year of the pandemic was remarkably tumultuous for Asia, which continued to be gripped by terrible losses while seeing widespread social and political unrest and fragile democratic gains erased by a rise in autocracy.

From a military coup to protests and violence, the horror of surging virus fatalities to a crowd-less Olympic Games held in the specter of COVID-19, the photojournalists of The Associated Press in Asia captured the volatility of 2021 with powerful visuals that will be etched in memories.

The year began with optimism surrounding the arrival of vaccines and hope that pandemic sufferings are coming to an end.

But global attention shifted quickly toward Myanmar, where military leaders upended years of quasi-democratic rule with a February seizure of power and then proceeded to violently suppress protests by hundreds of thousands of people, who risked arrests, injury and death.