Banya

A Serbian trafficker transporting 10 illegal migrants was captured this morning after trying to escape from a police patrol near Panagyurishte, announced Pazardzhik police spokesman Miroslav Stoyanov.

While trying to be detained, he rammed their patrol car.

Five people died and two people are in hospital after a serious accident on the Vidin ring road in the direction of Danube Bridge 2.

The incident happened at 9:30 p.m. A passenger minibus with Blagoevgrad registration collided with a truck that had stopped to wait its turn to cross Danube Bridge 2.

BANYA, Bulgaria — Like the storks that glide in on their annual pilgrimage from Africa, we try to spend every summer in my wife's home village of Banya in southwestern Bulgaria.

An earthquake with magnitude 2.7 on the Richter scale was registered on the territory of Bulgaria in the Blagoevgrad region earlier this morning. The earthquake was felt at 9:15 am this morning with an epicenter 7 km east of Belitsa, 46 km east of Blagoevgrad and 88 km south of Sofia, with a depth of 19 km, specified from the Euro-Mediterranean seismological center.

Mayor of Panagyurishte Nichola Belishki announced a state of emergency in the municipality of Sredna Gora. The reason is the lack of water for drinking and household purposes.

At present, Bulgaria houses 955 foreigners at temporary centres for accommodation run by the State Agency for Refugees (DAB).

This was stated on Tuesday by Bulgaria's Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Rumyana Bachvarova in a response to a question of MP from the ruling coalition.

Protesters from the Southwest Bulgarian village of Banya came to the streets on Friday to express their disagreement with a government project to build a landfill close to a historic monument.

Public dissatisfaction is caused by the fact that the landfill will be located next to a 17th century church of historic importance near the village of Debar.

Cylinders containing compressed natural gas (CNG) have exploded at a de-pressurisation station just outside the town of Razlog, in southwestern Bulgaria, causing a series of blasts and a major fire, authorities said.

Vasil Varbanov, Deputy Chair of Bulgaria's State Agency for Refugees, has cautioned about a new wave of refugees.

In a Monday interview for the Bulgarian National Television, Varbanov noted that the Agency had received a total of 726 applications for protection in the first 20 days of August, compared to a total of 320 applications in March and 311 in July.