Madrid:
A running bull gored and killed a woman spectator who poked her head through the barrier during a town bull run in central Spain today, authorities said.
"After poking her head through the bars she received a fatal blow to the head from a bull at the back of the herd," said a statement by the town hall of Arganda del Rey near Madrid.
The beast's horn pierced the neck of 48-year-old Maria del Carmen Lopez del Burgo and she died shortly afterwards, an emergency worker at the scene told RNE public radio.
The town hall said it would hold a minute's silence for the victim today and expressed its condolences to her family and loved ones. But it said the town festival would not be suspended.
Only on Monday, a bull gored a 41-year-old bricklayer and killed him, lancing the man's lung and a major artery during a bull run in the central Spanish town of Villaseca de la Sagra.
Towns across Spain hold festivals in which crowds of people show run ahead a pack of bulls, which thunder through the streets towards the bull ring for a fight.
In the most famous bull run in Pamplona in July, 37 people including 11 foreigners were injured this year.
Since 2000 at least 36 people have been gored to death in bull runs in Spain, according to the media.Professional bullfighters also face the risk of serious injury or death.
A half-tonne bull jabbed one of its horns into the throat and out of the mouth of top Spanish matador Julio Aparicio on May 21 in Madrid's 25,000-seat Las Ventas arena.
Photos of the spectacular injury, inflicted as he made a series of passes by the beast with his cape and sword, were splashed in newspapers worldwide.
Aparicio left hospital two weeks later barely able to speak.
There is intense debate in Spain over the centuries-old tradition of bullfighting.
The northeastern region of Catalonia in July became the first part of mainland Spain to ban bullfighting, which animal activists condemn as a form of torture but others see as part of the country's cultural heritage.
In a recent opinion poll, 60 per cent of Spaniards said they do not approve of the spectacle, which culminates with the death of the bull from a matador's well-placed sword.
"After poking her head through the bars she received a fatal blow to the head from a bull at the back of the herd," said a statement by the town hall of Arganda del Rey near Madrid.
The beast's horn pierced the neck of 48-year-old Maria del Carmen Lopez del Burgo and she died shortly afterwards, an emergency worker at the scene told RNE public radio.
The town hall said it would hold a minute's silence for the victim today and expressed its condolences to her family and loved ones. But it said the town festival would not be suspended.
Only on Monday, a bull gored a 41-year-old bricklayer and killed him, lancing the man's lung and a major artery during a bull run in the central Spanish town of Villaseca de la Sagra.
Towns across Spain hold festivals in which crowds of people show run ahead a pack of bulls, which thunder through the streets towards the bull ring for a fight.
In the most famous bull run in Pamplona in July, 37 people including 11 foreigners were injured this year.
Since 2000 at least 36 people have been gored to death in bull runs in Spain, according to the media.Professional bullfighters also face the risk of serious injury or death.
A half-tonne bull jabbed one of its horns into the throat and out of the mouth of top Spanish matador Julio Aparicio on May 21 in Madrid's 25,000-seat Las Ventas arena.
Photos of the spectacular injury, inflicted as he made a series of passes by the beast with his cape and sword, were splashed in newspapers worldwide.
Aparicio left hospital two weeks later barely able to speak.
There is intense debate in Spain over the centuries-old tradition of bullfighting.
The northeastern region of Catalonia in July became the first part of mainland Spain to ban bullfighting, which animal activists condemn as a form of torture but others see as part of the country's cultural heritage.
In a recent opinion poll, 60 per cent of Spaniards said they do not approve of the spectacle, which culminates with the death of the bull from a matador's well-placed sword.
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