A RED-AND-WHITE ocean of revellers erupted in cheers to launch
Spain's annual San Fermin bull-running festival 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
on Saturday, 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.
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