Spanish towns seek to repeat success of Tomatina festival

Madrid

SPAIN'S Tomatina festival, dubbed "the world's biggest food fight", has given the small town of Bunol a huge economic boost - and now other Spanish towns with quirky fiestas are seeking to mimic its success.

At the annual Tomatina fiesta on Wednesday, 160 tonnes of ripe tomatoes were offloaded from trucks into a crowd of over 22,000 half-naked revellers who packed the streets of Bunol for an hour-long battle. Locals and visitors pelted one another with tomatoes, leaving the streets of the eastern town which is home to just 10,000 people awash with red pulp.