Pamplona, Spain - Several people were injured Monday in the first bull run of the season in Pamplona, northern Spain, during the annual San Fermin festival, radio and television reports said.

The disorderly four-minute chase featured lone bulls, some of which cornered runners.

Hundreds of runners jostled with each other. At least eight people were taken to hospital. Most of them were injured while tripping and falling.

In the Saint Fermin bull runs, half a dozen fighting bulls are let loose on the winding streets of the old city centre.

Daredevil men known as mozos run alongside the bulls which weigh up to 700 kilogrammes, armed with nothing but folded newspapers. The animals make a 825-metre dash for the bullring, where they are killed in an evening bullfight.

The nine-day festival celebrated in honour of the city's patron Saint Fermin opened Sunday with the traditional firing of a rocket from the balcony of the city hall.

Up to a million tourists are expected to visit the city of 185,000 during the bull run season. Some of them participate personally in the bull runs, which were made famous by Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.

The bull runs have claimed 14 lives since 1924. The most recent victim, a 62-year-old Spaniard, was killed in 2003. Hundreds of participants are injured every year.

Animal rights activists criticize the spectacle, saying that the bulls are stimulated with electric shocks and sharp sticks. (dpa)