MADRID — The northern Spanish region of Navarra has announced the cancellation of the famed annual San Fermín bull-running festival in Pamplona for a second year in a row of because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“An international festival like San Fermín, in which millions of people come to Navarra, is not going to be possible,” said regional President María Chivite on Tuesday.

The nine-day festival in July is easily Spain’s most international event. The festival was popularized by Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises” and up to last year’s cancellation had last been called off during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

Last year, many residents of Pamplona dressed up in the traditional white clothes and red scarves to mark the July 6 festival start but there were none of the usual popular street parties.

Spain has seen least 59,000 confirmed virus deaths.