Boyko Borisov

 "I am not interested in anything else at the moment but lifting the cisterns. We will meet, we will talk," said outgoing Prime Minister Boyko Borisov when asked whether GERB would form a government with the Reformist Bloc.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Reformist Bloc received the third mandate to form a cabinet.

The Prime Minister position must be discussed together with the Reformist Bloc and GERB. It is normal and natural that the Prime Minister should be from GERB, stated the deputy chairman of SDS and RB deputy Rumen Hristov, reported BGNES.

"We have not set out to form a cabinet and propose a Prime Minister," added Hristov.

The executive council of the Reformist Bloc will meet today in order to decide whether the bloc will take advantage of the mandate to form a government which President Rossen Plevneliev will hand over to the formation at 11:00 hrs.

This is the last chance to form a cabinet within the framework of the current parliament before the appointment of a caretaker government.

Seven and not eight people died in the explosion following a train derailment in Hitrino, northeastern Bulgaria, outgoing Interior Minister Rumyana Bachvarova has said.

In a briefing with reporters after a night of cleanup operations on site, she has not elaborated.

On Sunday, outgoing Prime Minister Boyko Borisov announced the number of victims had risen to eight.

A day of mourning was declared by the Bulgarian government on Monday after a cargo train carrying petrol and propylene derailed in the village of Hitrino in northeast Bulgaria, causing an explosion that killed seven and injured 29 people.

The death toll of Saturday's train explosion in the Bulgarian village of Hitrino has increased to 8, outgoing Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has said.

The body of an 18-year-old adolescent, a resident of another nearby village, was found under the railway station's debris late on Saturday evening.

The number of fatalities after the incident in Hitrino in northeastern Bulgaria has increased to seven, authorities say.

More than two dozen people have been left injured.

On Saturday morning, cisterns full of liquefied petroleum gas and propylene went off the rail tracks and crashed into buildings in Hitrino, with one of them subsequently exploding.

Bulgaria is to hold a day of national mourning on Monday for the victims of an explosion on a cargo train transporting liquified gas to Romania.

Five people were killed and ten are in a serious condition, three of them in a critical condition, the Bulgarian Health Minister Petar Moskov said on Saturday.

Hristo Ivanov, who stepped down as Bulgaria's Justice Minister last December, launched a new political project on Friday.

At a meeting held exactly a year after he resigned after what he saw as a failed judicial reform, he told the audience that a "broad structure" of civic organizations and politicians was needed to address corruption and issues with the rule of law.

As the parties in Bulgaria's parliament struggle in vain to form a new government, President Rosen Plevneliev may face the task of having to appoint a third caretaker government in his five-year-mandate.

Plevneliev's task could be far more complicated this time, however, as his mandate is about to expire. He is due to hand over office to President-elect Rumen Radev on January 22.