- Title: SPAIN: TOMATINA FOOD FIGHT FESTIVAL GETS UNDERWAY IN BUNOL.
- Date: 28th August 2002
- Summary: (U5) BUNOL, SPAIN (AUGUST 28, 2002) (REUTERS) 1. PAN DOWN TO STREET WITH CROWDS OF PEOPLE 2. AERIAL SHOT OF TRUCK DRIVING THROUGH 3. PEOPLE BEING HIT WITH TOMATOES 4. CROWDS OF PEOPLE STOOD IN STREET COVERED IN TOMATOES 5. VARIOUS OF CROWDS 6. LINE OF PEOPLE SAT DOWN ON STREET 7. TWO WOMEN LOOKING INTO
- Embargoed: 12th September 2002 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: BUNOL, SPAIN
- Country: Spain
- Reuters ID: LVA7APT9O3IUC7GH3GDOOC6R0HQV
- Story Text: The world's most colourful food fight got underway in
eastern Spain where thousands of revellers have been pelting
each other with tonnes of tomatoes in annual "tomatina"
festival.
The world's biggest food fight painted the Spanish town
of Bunol red on Wednesday as 35,000 revellers pelted each
other with 120 tonnes of ripe plum tomatoes in the annual
"Tomatina" festival.
In an hour-long frenzy, the small town's central street
was transformed into a blur of flying fruit as Spaniards and
visitors from around the globe hurled tomatoes and cavorted in
the shin-deep pools of puree which give the "Tomatina" its name.
"It's good fun man, I tell you, it's like you can get out
your aggressions but you can do it in such a way that it's
not really going to hurt anybody. What a way to meet people,
the Spanish culture, the people are beautiful man".
gasped Carl Christian, an American student from St.Louis,
Missouri, as ketchup dripped from his dreadlocks.
On the stroke of noon, a rocket gives the signal for a
procession of six dump trucks each bearing 20 tonnes of
tomatoes to inch through the adrenaline and alcohol-fuelled
crowds.
The trucks tip huge piles of tomatoes and a few hapless
passengers, from their backs and waves of cheering
partygoers drive into the piles of fruit, flinging them in
every direction.
When no whole tomatoes remain, revellers scoop up handfuls
of juice, pips and skin to hurl.
Locals say the Tomatina, which caps a week-long
festival in the eastern Spanish town some 375 km (230 miles)
from Madrid, began as a spontaneous food fight between a group
of young locals having lunch in the tiny "People's Square" in
1945.
The only injury reported this year was a woman who
suffered a broken leg when she fell beneath one of the
construction trucks bearing the ripe fruit. Local television
said she had been taken to hospital in Valencia.
Shortly after a rocket signalled the end of the hour-long
battle, cleaning teams with high-power water hoses doused the
tomato-splattered walls of the main street, washing torrents
of red sludge into the sewers. Within hours the village
returned to normal and its thousands of visitors moved on.
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