A watery hell flooded Bulgaria in the night of 4th August 2005. Again!

The crisis was so overwhelming that previous floods seemed as innocent as a children's game in a swimming pool. The whole country collapsed. Railways suffered their most devastating disaster in their 117-year history. Latest reports by track maintenance experts show that BGN157 million will be necessary to cover the damages incurred by the disaster.

The Governmental Command centre for the flood-incurred damages allocated BGN30 million for the most urgent reconstruction works. BDZ EAD incurred daily losses of BGN 50,000 during the floods.

In the first days since he assumed the position of Minister of Transport, Petar Mutafchiev visited the most heavily-damaged line sections. The torrential rains destroyed railway infrastructure along the line Sofia-Plovdiv. The consequences were heavy and due only to the ceaseless and selfless efforts of emergency teams of the National Railway Infrastructure Company (NRIC), by 5th September most rail traffic was restored along this section before the scheduled deadline.

In spite of the dramatic circumstances in the first days of the disaster, BDZ EAD provided all passengers with alternative transport to the nearest station. Dozens of buses were assigned to cater for the transport needs of the passengers. Further to that, the customers did not incur any financial losses, as the company reimbursed all passengers with pre-paid tickets who cancelled their journeys.

It took seven days to restore train traffic along the Sub-Balkan railway line. Infrastructure in the railway line section Sofia-Karlovo was reconstructed on 11th August which made it possible to redirect trains to Burgas and Varna via Karlovo instead of via Plovdiv, which has been their original route. Passengers could travel to seaside towns by train and the railway operator temporarily cancelled bus services in the line section Ihtiman-Septemvri. The cancellation of bus services was due to the fact that BDZ EAD had to pay to bus companies for the provision of services and these costs were financially disadvantageous for the company.

At the end of the period (since 26th August 2005), BDZ EAD re-established bus services in the line section Ihtiman-Septemvri, implementing the train-bus-train transport scheme. On 9th August, train traffic was restored along the line sections Svoge-Bov, Septemvri-Velingrad, Avramovo-Dobrinishte, Rebrovo-Tompson, Voluyak-Hrabarsko, etc.

By 26th August, the emergency teams of NRIC had restored the railway section Dryanovo-Tsareva livada, which was among the most heavily-damaged sections by the previous flood wave in the period 3rd-13th July.