Heating Failures Leave Bulgarian Capital Cold

The supply of heating was suspended in six major residential areas in the Bulgarian capital Sofia on Wednesday, leaving several hundred thousands people in the cold.

The breakdown forced the ministry of education to send pupils from six neighbourhoods on an emergency vacation until the end of the week. Other schools will be allowed to cut classes if temperatures in classrooms go below 18C.

The municipal heat-and-power supplier, Toplofikatsia Sofia AD, has not set a deadline for when the failures, which its management called "unprecedented", will be addressed.

The company blamed the problem on an electricity failure, which led to breakdowns in the pumping stations of the central heating system.

The crisis started on Sunday in Sofia's second largest neighborhood, Mladost, home to over 100,000 people, and then spread to different areas of the capital, leaving a significant part of its over 1.2 million inhabitants without heating and warm water.

The worst affected area remains Mladost, where some locals still do not have any working central heating.

The crisis provoked outrage on social networks.

"All the teams of Toplofikatsia Sofia are working non-stop to resolve the failure", the heat-and-power supply company said on Wednesday, promising to compensate all its affected subscribers.

For many citizens of the capital, such apologies are not enough.

"Since Sunday morning we have had no heating or hot water," Rossitsa, who lives in Mladost, told BIRN. She explained that the heating is not the biggest problem but, as a mother of a baby, she is very troubled by the lack of hot water.

"I do not think that they [Toplofikatsia] gave adequate information. They constantly repeat that the central heating has been...