Revelers duke it out at Spain's annual tomato fight
西班牙番茄大战 城市变红色海洋
Tens of thousands of people armed with 140 tonnes of plum tomatoes took part in the La Tomatina festival, joyously splattering each other in Bunol, which lies just inland from Valencia on Spain's Mediterranean coast. The town spent some 30,000 euros on the fruit and dumped it in the streets for the chanting masses. This year, the August festival attracted 22,000 revelers in minimal clothing who paid 10 euros to partake in pelting each other with heaps and mounds and gobs of the red fruit. Truckloads of vitamin C and fiber were soon pureed on El Cid Street, the ripe redness smeared over walls and people. SOUNDBITE: Unidentified Tomatina festival participant, saying (Spanish): "I will spend three months without eating tomatoes. This is disgusting. But it is okay." The enormous food fight began accidentally in 1945, when a group of young men were excluded from summer celebrations and protested by throwing tomatoes from a street stall. The protest continued illegally every year until the town council accepted it as a festival in itself in 1957, and it became famous internationally after the 1990s.