Bulls gore runners, break bones in Spanish festival

A man was gored in the thigh and four other people suffered cuts and fractured bones on the sixth day of the annual Spanish bull-running in the Spanish town of Pamplona, organisers said.

They said a 26-year-old Colombian man was gored in his left thigh and was taken to a hospital in the northern Spanish city. Doctors declined to comment on his condition. The other four were treated for injuries including a broken jaw and fractures.

An estimated 8,000 took part in the early morning run fleeing bulls weighing up to 700 kg through the narrow cobbled streets of Pamplona.

Dozens of people have been injured so far in the week-long festival, made famous by Ernest Hemingway's novel The Sun also Rises.

A 23-year-old Irish tourist died after falling from the old city walls on Sunday, the first day of the festival, but before the first bull run.

Tourists from around the world visit the centuries-old festival of San Fermin despite the perennial casualty list and organisers said Pamplona would receive one million visitors this weekend, or five times the town's normal population.

Runners don traditional all-white garb with a red sash around the waist and red kerchief around the neck. They chant below a shrine to Fermin, patron saint of the Navarra region, before taking their chances with the bulls.

The festival is so popular that each early morning run - which lasts up to four minutes - is shown live on television. The bulls are usually killed in bullfights later in the day.

Bull-running is only the start of each day of the festival, which also includes parades with giant dolls, strongmen competing to lift anvils, the "jota" folk dance, recitals of traditional music and firework displays.