A man froze to death in Bulgaria, as a snow storm descended on the central Balkans, disrupting traffic, power lines and schools, dpa quoted local media reports on Thursday. Snowdrifts in north Bulgaria and south Romania reached 3 metres high in places as the storm entered its second day, forcing several municipalities to declare a state of emergency. The victim was found at a bus stop in the capital Sofia, Bulgarian radio reported, without providing additional details. The area of Ruse was hit the hardest, emergency services said. The storm forced the closure of a key bridge on the Danube between Bulgaria and Romania, its northern neighbor. Seeking to avert a potentially deadly congestion on snowed-inroads, Bulgaria stopped all trucks inbound from Turkey and Greece until weather improves and appealed on people to delay driving trips whenever possible. Mobile phone services have been down in some areas and around 75 villages were without power. The CEZ power company said it was working frantically to restore the grid to 53,000 users in the we stand south. In Romania, a train with 123 passengers was derailed when it hit a snowdrift Wednesday night. Also, the army had to rescue hundreds of people from their stranded cars, but no injuries were reported and some people even refused to abandon their vehicles. Prime Minister Emil Boc said that a bus with passengers was still trapped in the south, near Uzun. He urged the transport and defence ministers to use tanks for rescue, Media fax news agency reported. Flights were canceled, delayed or diverted at both Sofia and Bucharest airports and the Bulgarian Black Sea port Varna was closed because of the gale force wind. To the west, in Serbia, the situation was "very serious, “according to the head of emergency services, Predrag Maric. Bus departures in southern and western Serbia were being canceled and trains were running late, while schools remained closed for the second day. Snow and wind damaged power lines in several places in western and central Serbia, leaving thousands of people without electricity, the Serbian power company EPS said. Just across the Serbian border to the west, in Bosnia, a major power line was damaged, causing blackouts in towns and villages in the area. Dozens of villages there have been without electricity since Wednesday. Meteorologists in the region have been warning that more bad weather is expected, with the storm lasting until at least Friday and snow continuing even beyond that.
