Playing ketchup at the Tomatina

About 40,000 people descended on the Spanish town of Bunol to take part in the Tomatina festival.

The food fight draws visitors from around the world to the normally quiet village in eastern Spain.

They pelt each other with ripe tomatoes until they become soaked through with juice and covered in pulp, getting through as much as 100,000kg of the ripe fruit.

The local council usually publishes a list of pelting etiquette, on how to fight without hurting anyone.

Tradition dictates that the crowd cools off in a nearby river once the tomato supply runs dry.

The festival started in the 1940s when a group of young friends began throwing their lunch at each other near a vegetable stand in the town square.

They met again the next year to pelt each other along with passers-by, creating an annual tradition that is dedicated to the town's patron saint, St Luis Bertran.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

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