Torrential rain causes chaos in Bulgaria’s Varna
Torrential rain inundated Bulgaria’s largest Black Sea city Varna on June 4, bringing down trees, turning streets into rivers and disrupting traffic.
Rain was bucketing down at a rate of 40 litres a square metre, exceeding the 20 to 25 litre a sq m that had been forecast and that had led to a “Code Yellow” warning of potentially dangerous weather being declared for the city.
By the late afternoon, there were no reports of serious injuries.
There were 25 reports called in of flooded buildings in Varna, emergency services said.
There were delays in the running of public buses, with the city’s Urban Transport centre left without electricity because of storm damage.
Six teams of emergency staff had been deployed, local authorities said.
Apart from flooded streets, several underpasses, including a newly-constructed one, were inundated, reports from Varna said.
The city has been a number of flooding incidents in recent years in June-July. The July 2014 floods in Varna’s Asparouhovo area left 13 people dead and caused extensive property damage, running into millions of leva.
Rain is forecast to continue in Varna and along other parts of Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, including Bourgas, in the coming few days.
