Thousands pack city for bull-running festival

Tens of thousands of cheering, champagne-soaked revellers packed the central streets and plaza of Pamplona today to kick off Spain’s most famous fiesta, the San Fermin bull-running festival.

To the cries of ‘‘Viva San Fermin!,’’ Socialist town councillor Roberto Jimenez ignited the traditional ‘‘chupinazo’’ firecracker in the city’s main square to officially start the festival, popularised by Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel ‘‘The Sun Also Rises.’’

‘‘Los San Fermines,’’ held since 1591, attracts tens of thousands of foreign visitors each year for nine days of revelry, morning bull-runs and afternoon bullfights.

This year, however, one group protested against the fiesta, in which 50 bulls are almost certain to be killed in bullfights.

A day before the start, some two dozen members of the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a US-based international animal rights group, ran naked through the streets of Pamplona with their bodies painted with slogans like ‘‘let bulls die in peace’’, calling for an end to bullfighting.

The mostly young activists from various European countries and the US said they wanted to draw attention to the suffering of the bulls during the ‘encierro’ the near three-minute charge through the old city for which the San Fermin festival is famous.

Today, however, there were no signs of protest.

Wild cheers erupted from the thousands of people, most dressed in the traditional white shirts with red neck scarves, crammed into the old quarter’s narrow streets as they doused each other in champagne, danced and sang local folk songs.

As usual, dozens waved the green red and white Basque flag in support of independence for the neighbouring Basque region.

Tomorrow morning, and after virtually 20 hours of nonstop partying, a handful of the bravest or most reckless people will test their mettle and fitness in a three-minute dash to the bullring pursued by six prime fighting bulls and a handful of guiding steer.

The run is a 825-metre (902-yard) stampede from the corral where the bulls are kept to the outdoor bullfighting arena where they will be invariably killed by matadors later in the day.

The spectacle is repeated each day till July 14 and is broadcast live on Spanish television. But injuries are always numerous, as the large crowds jostle for space to dodge the bulls sharp horns and death is always a possibility.

The last fatality was a 22-year-old American gored to death in 1995, the 13th runner to die since records began in 1924, and the first since 1980.