Floods at Bulgaria's Southern Black Sea coast: Eyewitness accounts

Disaster - this is the word people trapped in the floods use to describe the situation in the area. Of Bulgaria’s Black Sea southern coast.

Diana Kancheva, Tsarevo: It has been raining for 20 hours. Started about 4 pm in the afternoon, with two big clouds above the sea and big drops of rain started. At first, there were strong lightnings. The situation in Tsarevo is terrible."

People are trying to describe the storm in words, the footage from their phones screaming: disaster.

Diana Kancheva, Tsarevo: "The municipality with the alert system warned all residents to go up to the higher floors as there was a danger of flooding. There are stranded cars, the bridge to the neighborhood is destroyed, the port is in a tragic state, the stage has fallen."

Floods at Bulgaria's Southern Black Sea coast - casualties, hundreds evacuated and huge damages

First-hand account of the horror in Tsarevo: We were warned to get on higher ground, it didn't stop raining all night

A group of off-road racers became volunteers in Kiten and Tsarevo.

Gerard Enev - organiser of the National Off-Road Event - Primorsko: "We are coming from the campsite in Kiten, where everything is under water, we have gathered about 20 - 25 four wheel drives and a lot of volunteers, everything is completely submerged in water, we are taking out families, we are taking out cars, we are taking out campers, we are taking out caravans, the river overflowed and flooded the whole campsite."

The flood-water level reached over one and a half metres at the Nestinarka campsite.

Tsvetomir Zhikov: "Several cars were swept into the flood water, all the other cars are just flooded to the top, the water rose above above the seats.. The fire fighting teams came, they were able to get me out of the car because it was in the middle of the street and in the flowing water and they managed to tie it up and get it out without any impact to the other cars."

Streets and parks in Lozenets turned into rivers. Parts of the beaches are flooded, sunbeds are floating.

Ivaylo Lekov: "We are in the village of Lozenets, the situation is a state of disaster, hopefully there will be no casualties, it is very scary. The rain is getting heavier, there is strong wind, thunder, surge and a lot of water, the river is overflowing as you can see and the situation is very scary."

Seven people were stranded at the Silistar campsite.

Tony Ivanov: "There are maybe 4 or 5 caravans around me and everything else is down in the ravine. The roads are completely flooded, it's all waterfalls, there's no way to pass, people were trying to get through here with four wheel drives, but they're all stuck. There is no passing. The only thing is to drain the water so you can get through, there's no other way out of the campground."

At Arapya campsite, the force of the water carried cars and caravans out to sea. A mother with three children became trapped in a caravan.

Vesela Zozikova: "The situation of our caravan is less tragic than it is in the lower part of the campsite, where the caravans have been thrown on top of each other, some of them have been flushed out to sea. The road is flooded and we can't get out to go to Tsarevo or to Lozenets, we just can't get out."

Nikolai Angelov: "Look what's happening behind me - here's the car. There are caravans there, the rain doesn't stop. We're going to help some people who lost their dog.”

The heavy rain flooded hotels on Arapya. 30 people remain stranded in one of the buildings.

Kiril Kotsev - hotel owner: "The problem is with the electricity and what people will eat. There's no electricity, there's one shop and everything in it has been sold."

The situation in the village of Kosti is critical. Veleka river burst its banks and flooded houses.

Anton Angelov - mayor of the village of Kosti: "The situation is really difficult, there is a lot of water, a lot of rain and I am in an extremely difficult situation right now. We have several people who are now waiting for the first opportunity to help them. There is no danger to their lives as the houses are on high ground."

The streets in Sinemorets also turned into rivers.

Maria Grozdeva: "It rains like this at intervals - all day, all night, we have had no electricity for maybe 3 - 4 hours, and we don't know where the failure is and when we will have electricity."

In Primorsko the rain also does not stop.

Zdravko Vassilev: "Fortunately for us there is almost no damage in the town, except for some local flooding. I called on friends, acquaintances to be ready to help to our neighboring municipality. A lot of people have responded, but I want to say that our actions will be fully in sync with the recommendations and orders of the crisis management team from Tsarevo."

In Ahtopol, it started raining last night at 19.00 and did not stop for nearly 20 hours.

Alexander Dimitrov: "Quite strong wind, quite a lot of broken trees, umbrellas falling down, thunder, lightning falling quite close, power outages every 5, every 10 minutes lasting for 15 - 20 minutes. Communications are still OK. For the time being, everything is under control, calm, people are not worried or nervous - after all, we are on a little higher ground and maybe that's why the water is not flooding us, but the houses that are in the lower part of town are flooded."

At the sea near Ahtopol, only one surfer was enjoying the weather.

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