A RED-AND-WHITE ocean of revellers erupted in cheers to launch Spain's annual San Fermin bull-running festival on Saturday but only after a 19-minute delay caused by a giant Basque flag that blocked the starting rocket.
The nine-day mix of alcohol-soaked partying and fleeing huge, sharp-horned fighting bulls is supposed to start at noon each year with a traditional shout of "Viva San Fermin!" and the launch of a firecracker known as the "chupinazo".
But just 10 minutes before the firework was to be set off from the city hall of the northern city of Pamplona, a massive Basque flag was hoisted in front of the building.
City officials struggled to remove the flag, strung up between buildings on either side of the Consistorial square, before the firecracker could be set off.
"I am not going to tolerate setting off the chupinazo with a flag that is not the flag of Pamplona," said the city's mayor, Enrique Maya.
"We have to do it the right way, and not with the indignity some want to impose on us," he told Spain's public television.
Pamplona lies in the Spanish Basque Country, where some favour creating an independent nation in northern Spain and southern France.
When the firework finally flew above the square, masses of people squeezed into the streets broke into cheers, danced and sprayed each other with sangria and cheap wine, turning white shirts pink.
"It's one of those big things you need to get done before you die," said Alison Windsor, a 27-year-old Australian who came just for the festival.
"I needed to come once in my life," she said.
"I am not sure I will run with the bulls."
The highlight of the festival is a bracing, daily test of courage against a pack of half-tonne fighting bulls.
Each day hundreds of people race with six huge bulls, charging along a winding course through the narrow streets to the city's bull ring, where the animals will be killed in a bullfight.
Fifteen people have been killed in the bull runs since records started in 1911.
The most recent death took place four years ago when a bull gored a 27-year-old Spaniard in the neck, heart and lungs.
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