Valencia is famous for its fireworks. The Valencians love their fireworks so much that they don’t just have them at night like we do, they want them during the day too. This presents a rather obvious problem in so much as you cannot see fireworks when the sun is up.
The solution is simple – during the day they have extremely noisy fireworks instead. Brilliant.
From my understanding in the five minutes or so La Mascletà lasts they burn their way through 120KG of explosives.
I have to apologise for the shoddy camera work, but it’s difficult to simultaneously hold a camera whilst putting you hands over you ears. You may think this somewhat wimpy of me, but perhaps you’d be more understanding when I tell you that the levels reach 120 dB and people have been known to faint.
To give that some context anything above 90dB listened to regularly will cause damage to your hearing and 130dB is the threshold of pain – aptly named as it’s the point where you would suffer immediate permanent hearing damage. It’s fun but you wouldn’t want it to be the last thing you heard..