When the tree planting effort concluded yesterday, officials announced Ethiopians have much surpassed the originally planned amount of planting 200 million trees: the number of trees planted in twelve hours is well over 350 million.

The previously held world record for most trees planted in a day was India's 49.3 million trees planted on July 11, 2016. Ethiopia's tree planting national move yesterday has seen the world record rise over seven-fold.

Getahun Mekuria, Ethiopia's Minister of Innovation and Technology, tweeted estimates of the number of trees being planted throughout the day Monday. By early evening, he said 353,633,660 tree seedlings were planted in 12 hours.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed also congratulated Ethiopians for not only meeting the target set, but also for far exceeding it.

“This activity sends a strong message to the world,” PM Abiy said.

Prime Minister’s Green Legacy initiative, launched in May, aims to plant a total of 4 billion trees this rainy season. With the figures from yesterday in, close to three billion trees are now planted as part of this initiative.

Sources: Twitter pages of Getahun Mekuria, Innovation and Technology Minister, Office of the Prime Minister - Ethiopia