Army assists in snow-clearing in northern Bulgaria for a third day
Personnel and equipment from Bulgaria’s 55th Engineering Regiment were continuing, for a third day, to assist the population in the Pleven region in the northern party of the country because of the harsh winter weather conditions, the Ministry of Defence said on February 28.
At the request of the regional governor of Pleven, the army was assisting in clear sections of road in the villages Lozitsa, Lyubenovo and Vabel in Nikopol municipality.
Cars and even snow-cleaning equipment were stranded in the heavy snowfall, the statement said.
Bulgaria’s Road Infrastructure Agency said on February 28 that close to 1500 snow-clearing machines were at work on national roads.
The most complicated was the situation in Northeastern Bulgaria – in the districts of Dobrich, Rousse, Razgrad and Silistra, and in the Bourgas region, the road infrastructure agency said.
Because of blizzards, storm winds and snowfall, traffic on Trakia Motorway in the section between Yambol and Bourgas was temporarily suspended, the agency said on the afternoon of February 28.
There were temporary restrictions on the movement of vehicles in the Varna – Shoumen section of Hemus Motorway because of snowfall and strong winds.
The municipality of Aksakovo, just north of Varna, declared a state of emergency because of heavy snowfall, strong winds, reduced visibility and low temperatures.
Provisionally, Bulgaria faced a “Code Yellow” warning of potentially hazardous weather throughout the country on March 1 because of forecast low temperatures.
For March 1, Bulgarian capital Sofia faced a forecast of a minimum minus 16 degrees Celsius and a maximum minus one, with cloudy weather. Plovdiv was forecast to see a low of minus 14 degrees, rising to minus three, Varna a low of minus nine degrees rising to minus three, and Bourgas minus 10 degrees, rising to minus three. For all three of these cities, forecasts were for cloudy to partly cloudy weather.
(Photo: Bulgarian Ministry of Defence)
