Today is day of mourning in Burgas district in memory of the three victims of the latest floods in Bulgaria on the night of Saturday. During the weekend there were emergency situations in Haskovo and Stara Zagora municipalities. Days before that Berkovitza was flooded and last month the town of Mizia was underwater. The floods took a total of 25 lives. This is a big number compared to the number of victims in neighboring countries which were hit hard by floods this year, too.

In neighboring Romania, water flooded 10 districts, and a lot more rain poured, while the victims were five. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia experienced the biggest floods of the past 120 years. In Bosnia and Herzegovina the disaster killed 11 people. In Serbia over 250 liters / sq. m of rain flooded vast areas and victims were some 30 people. In Bulgaria, heavy rains were actually below the perceived as critical threshold of 200 l/sq. m.

The truth is that Bulgaria has once again showed it was less prepared for such disasters than its neighbors. It is true that violent floods until recently were not typical for Bulgaria. Bulgarians saw on television flooded settlements in western and central Europe, but in this country summer fires were a bigger problem. Since the beginning of the century, however, the picture has been slowly but surely changing. A number of big floods hit the country in 2005 and this is the second time Bulgaria goes through such disasters.

Unfortunately the previous disasters have not taught us anything. Forests that retain part of the water during heavy rains are recklessly cut down. Riverbeds are not cleared but actually used for disposing garbage, thus obstructing water flow. Houses are built illegally and carelessly on landslide areas and on river banks.

Great problems are also caused by the system of dams and river dikes in the country, which is actually not a system at all anymore. Ownership of facilities has been scattered among various institutions, which has made them mostly uncontrollable. Some are crumbling down, while others are being used as fish farms. And when time comes dams are just drained, without much thinking about the effects. During the latest floods lots of fish entered the flooded homes of the people. "No fish rains from the sky,” was the ironic comment of one of the affected.

The way for solving the problems is clear and tasks have already been set by institutions. They include stopping forest felling, not obstructing river beds, managing dams in a responsible manner, having a system for early warning, as well as effective ways of disaster response.

Unfortunately, the state and society once again showed they are incapable of responsible behavior on a daily basis, which could have prevented having casualties in such natural disasters. At the backdrop of climate changes natural disasters seem to be getting more frequent. Hopefully we soon realize this and get more organized.

English: Alexander Markov