IN PICS: Shock and awe as Valencia’s Las Fallas festival celebrates with a bang 

VALENCIA’S famous festival of Las Fallas is back with a bang after two years of being cancelled during the pandemic.

Each day the celebrations erupt with a deafening firecracker display that has at times filled the air with blue and yellow smoke to show solidarity to the Ukrainian people.

The main aim of the ‘Mascleta’ as the daily 2pm ceremony is called, is to generate as much noise as possible reaching a tremendous cacophony that threatens to burst the eardrums.

Las Fallas is an annual festival peculiar to Valencia that was originally started by a community of carpenters and coincides with a celebration of spring and San Jose, the patron saint of Carpenters.

Giant models often satires of famous people are built over the year  by teams of craftsmen and then displayed from March 1.

The festival culminates on March 19 when the displays are set alight in a fiery ‘nite de la crema’

Here are some of the dramatic images from the mascleta this year.

h-BivakZak

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• Spectacular world-famous Fallas featuring fireworks and giant statues return to Spain’s Valencia