Asparuhovo Deputy Mayor: Gullies Partly Caused Disaster

A drainage gully in Varna's Asparuhovo was dysfuctioning during the floods as temprorary outlets were located on it, the Deputy District Mayor argued.

Radoslav Koev suggested in an interview with Dnevnik.bg that the location of commercial venues where water is to be deviated from the streets have severely affected the drainage infrastructure of the region.

He said outlets situated on a gully in the higher parts of Asparuhovo might also have led to damages in the sewage system and described this as "one of the reasons"  for Thursday afternoon's floods.

"The water had nowhere to go and overflowed along the slope. It swamped cars and houses," Koev explained.

His comments come after severe floods took ten lives in the low-lying parts of the Black Sea city of Varna's Asparuhovo and left two dead in the town of Dobrich.

A number of towns and cities across Central and Northeastern Bulgaria have declared a state of emergency.

Koev added the disaster has affected a number of buildings in Asparuhovo's Roma-populated neighborhood, as many of them were illegally built.

Pre-trial proceedings were launched in Varna on Friday to find out what caused the massive flooding.