More than 20,000 people have pelted each other in the street with tomatoes in this year's "Tomatina" as the Spanish event celebrates its 70th birthday.
Others believe the tomatoes were thrown to protest an unfavorable decision by the city council or launched at a particularly bad musician.
There isn’t a definitive history of how the event got started. Some believe it happened when two boys got into a fight during a parade and began lobbing tomatoes from a vegetable stand at each other.
Two woman have their photo taken as they pose in a puddle of squashed tomatoes during the annual "tomatina" tomato fight fiesta, in the village of Bunol.
The streets of an eastern Spanish town are awash with red pulp as thousands of people pelt each other with tomatoes in the annual "Tomatina" battle that has become a major tourist attraction.
Two men lie in a puddle of squashed tomatoes, during the annual "tomatina" tomato fight fiesta, in the village of Bunol.
Crowds of people throw tomatoes at each other, during the annual "tomatina" tomato fight fiesta, in the village of Bunol, 50 kilometers outside Valencia, Spain.
The paid-entry event was inspired by a food fight between local children in 1945 in the tomato-producing region.
Reflecting its worldwide popularity, Google dedicated its search engine doodle to the fiesta.
The tomato fight leaves the participants and the town's streets awash with red pulp. The town is hosed down minutes after the event ends at noon, while participants can use public showers.
At the annual fiesta in the eastern town of Bunol on Wednesday, 175 tons of ripe tomatoes were offloaded from seven trucks into the crowd packing the streets for an hour-long battle.