Madrid: A charging bull gored a Frenchman to death early Tuesday at a festival in eastern Spain, local authorities said.
The 44-year-old died overnight in Pedreguer, a town north of Alicante, where he was at the bull run festival with friends, the town hall said in a statement.
"At about 1:00 am (2300 GMT Monday) he was gored by a bull which caused him very serious injuries. The only thing medical staff could do was to certify his death."
It said the organisers immediately cancelled all the bull runs scheduled until Wednesday "as an act of mourning" for the man, whom it did not name.
Elsewhere, five Spaniards were treated in hospitals after being hurt in the last bull run of this year`s San Fermin festival in the northern town of Pamplona, organisers said.
The five, aged between 20 and 46, were treated for bumps and bruises sustained during that run but no actual gorings were reported.
Ten people were recorded as being gored in the past week during the Pamplona festival, which draws hundreds of thousands of people from around the world.
In the first run of this year`s festival on July 7, two Americans and a British man were gored and eight others hurt.
The Pamplona festival was immortalised by US author Ernest Hemingway in his 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises", which has helped feed the popularity of the dangerous bull runs among foreigners.
Fifteen people have been recorded killed in the Pamplona bull runs since 1911. Before Tuesday`s death the most recent fatality was that of a Spaniard who was gored in 2009.
Animal rights groups decry the bull runs, which end with bullfights in the arena.
