Emergencies
1000 places without electricity after the onset of winter in Bulgaria
A man in Isperih shovels snow to clear his car. photo
© Mehmed Aziz/AP/dpa
The early onset of winter in Bulgaria and Romania has already cost one person his life: a homeless man froze to death. Thousands of people have no electricity.
Due to snow chaos with strong winds, more than 1,000 places in the Balkan country had to manage without electricity at the weekend. In the capital Sofia, power supply was also interrupted in the southern parts of the city due to damaged cables, Bulgarian media reported. The north-east of Bulgaria was most affected by the snowfall and drifts, which were unusually intense for November. Four regions declared a state of emergency.
Country roads were reportedly impassable due to all the snow. Broken branches blocked the roads in many places. Passenger trains from the Black Sea city of Varna to Sofia stopped due to damaged power lines. Important passes in the Balkan Mountains were temporarily completely closed to traffic. Several international flights were canceled at Varna airport. The planes took off late at Sofia airport.
Snowstorms and drifts also caused chaos in eastern Romania on Sunday. There was a power outage in around 200 towns, affecting around 250,000 people, Romanian media reported. The motorway bypass near the Black Sea port city of Constanta remained temporarily closed, as did the Danube bridge near Braila. The port of Constanta and all other ports on the Romanian Black Sea ceased operations.