Woman is gored to death after straying outside safety barrier during bull-running festival in Spanish town

A woman has been gored to death by a bull at a Spanish festival after she was left stranded outside safety barriers.

The 64-year-old was standing on the road when one of the animals turned around and went for her.

The fatality, captured on video, happened just before 11am on Saturday in the village of Ayna in Albacete, a two-and-a-half-hour drive west and inland from Alicante.

The unnamed woman had been visiting the area from Catalonia with her husband.

Footage of the drama showed her waving the fighting bulls and steers on as they headed towards the spot where she was standing.

At first, they appeared to be moving past her, as she ran back in the direction they had come from, before the animal stopped and gored her as she lay helpless on the ground.

Confirming the death – and a separate incident in which a man was hurt on a different part of the route the bulls ran along – a spokesman for a regional-government emergency services centre said: ‘A woman has died after being injured in a bull goring at a festival in Ayna in Albacete. Another person has been injured.’

Ayna’s mayor Juan Angel Martinez said: ‘During part of the route, in an area known as Las Cuevas, the woman stopped still by the barrier and, when she started running, one of the bulls charged at her.’

The bull run was part of festivities to honour Ayna’s patron saint, Santa Maria de lo Alto. The rest of Saturday’s events were suspended following the incident.

The village has a registered population of just 577 inhabitants but is a popular summer holiday destination due to its beautiful scenery and climate.

It is in the region of Castilla La Mancha and is known as ‘Manchegan Switzerland’ due to its location between two mountain ranges.

The annual festival, which began on Thursday, is due to finish tomorrow.

Last month two people were killed and 11 injured in a gory Mexican version of Pamplona’s famous running of the bulls festival.

The casualties included a woman who was tossed up in the air by one of the half-ton animals set loose in the streets.

Footage showed her being horned in the face and left at the mercy of the bull in Huamantla in the state of Tlaxcala, around 100 miles east of Mexico City.

One of the men believed to have lost his life was filmed being attacked before witnesses to the goring dragged him away.

The number of fatalities rose to two after it was confirmed on August 24, two days after the event, a second man had died in hospital.

Luis Xolocotzi Ramirez, 57, had suffered a skull fracture and gore injury to his chest and had been taken to a specialist hospital by air ambulance.

The first man who died was named as 29-year-old Juan Manuel Filomeno Herrera.

Twenty-one fighting bulls were released as part of the event, called the Huamantlada 2026 and considered the largest of its kind in the world.

The deaths were the first for eight years.