SOFIA, Jan 4, 2008 (AFP) - Heavy snowfall and temperatures as low as minus 19 degrees Celsius (minus 2.2 Fahrenheit) left three people dead in Bulgaria and prompted authorities to call a state of emergency in parts of the country on Friday. Two people, a 65-year-old man and an 82-year-old woman, were found frozen to death outside their homes and a kidney patient died on his way to hospital, the national rescue service announced. The rescue service said that a state of emergency had been declared in the region around Ruse, Bulgaria's fifth-largest city, as well as in Dobrich and in nine smaller towns in the northeast. In all, 77 towns and villages across the country were left without electricity, and 57 also had no water, with the army called in to supply bread to the cut-off regions, the rescue service said.
Bulgaria's major highway east from the capital Sofia remained closed Friday and a train with 63 passengers was stuck in snowdrifts near the northeastern city of Silistra. Bulgaria's disaster prevention minister Emel Etem urged people to avoid travelling except in an emergency and take with them enough water, food and fuel supplies as well as blankets and fully-charged mobile phones. But the press lashed out at the authorities' handling of the situation, pointing out that snow was not totally unexpected at this time of year. Low temperatures along the Danube turned stretches of the river into slush but posed no threat to shipping, the river waterway authority announced. Strong winds also closed down Bulgaria's major port of Varna on the Black Sea, authorities said.
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