Eight drown in Bulgarian floods*

SOFIA, Aug 7 (AFP) Aug 07, 2007

Flooding has killed eight people over the past two days in Bulgaria,
officials said Tuesday, as a heatwave that ravaged the country in early
summer gave way to heavy downpours and storms.

Six people drowned in Tsar-Kaloyan, in the northeast, while 10 people
were injured and four were reported missing, including a child,
emergency officials said. The town currently has no electricity or
drinking water and a state of emergency has been declared there.

In the northern Rousse region, an 88-year-old man drowned when his home
flooded. His wife was hospitalised with hypothermia after spending hours
in the water, a hospital source said.

Another man drowned in the northwest region of Montana.

A state of emergency has also been declared in the southern town of
Pazarjik, where water levels rose by one metre (three feet), flooding
public buildings. There were no reported casualties.

And on Monday night, three teenagers training in a football stadium in
the eastern city of Varna were struck by lightning. They survived,
although one of them remains in a serious condition, hospital officials
said.

The heavy rains that began falling on Saturday followed a long heatwave
in which temperatures reached 43 degrees Celsius (109.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

Hospitals reported an increase in respiratory diseases after
temperatures plummeted to just 12 degrees on Sunday.