An errant fly ruined a world record domino attempt in Germany on Friday.

Participants at a domino event in the town of Nidda, near Frankfurt, were attempting to beat the record for the most mini-dominoes to fall in one go. But a fly landed on one of the tiny dominoes, triggering the chain reaction before they had completed the setup.

"The fly triggered the chain reaction prematurely," organizer Patrick Sinner told DPA news agency on Saturday. "There was no more time to set up all the little tiles again."

The tiles they were using were no bigger than a little fingernail.

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Participants did, however, manage to set four world records in a single run, including the longest domino chain reaction. The run used 596,229 tiles and took 15 minutes to complete.

The chain reaction also set the record for longest domino wall, the largest spiral and the largest domino cube.

The event involved around 20 participants working over two weeks. The team was reportedly set back a day after the premature collapse of a major element of the run.