site.btaBulgarian Coastal Towns Brace for More Floods as Authorities Confront Disaster Roots 

With torrential rains lashing Bulgaria’s southern Black Sea coast, the seaside town of Tsarevo declared Tuesday a non-school day and urged residents to stay indoors. In Sofia and elsewhere in the country, authorities and experts engaged in urgent soul-searching over what continues to turn storms into deadly disasters.

The southern coast is still reeling from floods, including a deadly one in the Elenite resort and the town of Tsarevo on October 3. Emergency teams from local, regional, and national institutions remain on high alert in Tsarevo, monitoring critical areas and preparing for further rainfall.

On Tuesday morning, Bulgaria’s Fire Safety and Civil Protection Directorate reported 58 alerts for the last 24 hours, 24 of these being weather-related. Localized flooding was reported in the resorts of Lozenets and the Nestinarka holiday complex. While water has since receded, power supply remains disrupted at nearly 40 sites. 

At a special press briefing on Tuesday, Regional Development Minister Ivan Ivanov confirmed that inspections in Elenite uncovered significant construction irregularities. Two major sites—the Negresco Hotel and a nearby aquapark—lack any construction documentation. The hotel itself was built directly in a riverbed, requiring the watercourse to be diverted into a tunnel beneath the building.

"All permitting and planning for these developments took place between 1997 and 2008 under the jurisdiction of the local municipality,” Ivanov said. “A reasonable question is why the detailed plans were not coordinated with the Basin Directorate of the Environment Ministry.”

The Ministry has ordered a wider audit of similar cases along the coast, focusing on dry channels and riverbeds that may have been illegally developed.

Architects issue blistering critique

In a strongly worded statement, the Chamber of Architects in Bulgaria (CAB) placed direct blame on decades of uncontrolled and often illegal construction, environmental degradation, and institutional inaction.

“Excessive construction in ravines and water channels, the destruction of dunes and green spaces, and the legalization of violations after the fact have made every storm a potential disaster,” the statement reads. The architects are calling for a moratorium on new construction in high-risk areas, a full audit of all spatial plans, and the reinstatement of natural drainage systems and green buffers.

CAB also criticized several state bodies—including the Ministry of Environment and Water and the Ministry of Agriculture—for greenlighting developments even in high-risk zones such as riverbeds.

The disaster has rekindled calls for systemic reform and better coordination among Bulgaria’s many overlapping institutions. “Most disasters are a combination of natural forces and human stupidity,” said Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev on Tuesday. “The main issue in Elenite is that too many institutions share responsibility for the same area. That’s part of the problem.”

During the Mayor of the Year 2025 awards in Sofia, Vice President Iliana Iotova said that coordinated efforts by both local and national institutions "are essential to tackle the crises that are flooding the country one after another.” She said now is not the time for political point-scoring. She also used the occasion to renew calls for greater municipal autonomy. “If local authorities had more power and resources, perhaps some of these disasters could have been mitigated,” Iotova told the assembled mayors.