Svilen Shitov

Torrential rain flooded dozens of houses in the Bulgarian town of Devnya late yesterday afternoon. Streets and basements are flooded. In about 40 minutes, the amount that fell was 70 liters per square meter. Volunteers and Civil Defense teams helped the most affected to evacuate their homes.

Dozens of blood tubes of unknown origin have been found thrown near the road junction of the Hemus Highway in Devnya.

Vasil Koychev, chairperson of Devnya municipal council and leader of the local party structure, has been excluded from Bulgaria's largest ruling party GERB.

The executive commitee of the party decided to exclude him from the party as of Sunday after an investigation of private NOVA TV revealed that Koychev had caused financial damages to the municipality amounting to BGN 70 000.