One killed, 24 injured in Mexican bull running

HUAMANTLA, Mexico, Aug 19 (Reuters) One man was gored to death by a bull's horn and 24 people were injured in a weekend running of the bulls in central Mexico, a less well-known cousin of Spain's famous Pamplona festival.

The 60-year-old man was gored in the abdomen by a bull and died on the way to hospital yesterday in Huamantla, a town 170 km from Mexico City, said local health official Ulises Bello.

Among the injured, one woman and two men were in a critical condition.

Thousands of people lined the streets of Huamantla as 23 bulls were let loose in five streets in a festival held since 1953 in Tlaxcala state, the cradle of Mexican bull fighting.

The festival has yet to achieve the status of Spain's San Fermin bull running, which was made famous by Ernest Hemingway's novel ''The Sun also Rises,'' a semi-autobiographical account of an alcohol-fueled visit to the event by a group of squabbling British and American friends in the 1920s.

REUTERS SBC PM2058