Social tension in Asenovgrad. Thousands of people are without water for the third day due to a huge accident on a main water main.
The pipe supplies 40% of the city. The paradox is that a new house was built on the broken water main, and this turns out to be a huge problem for repairing the accident. This has raised questions about how and who allowed a residential building to be built on a main water supply pipe, Nova TV reports.
The resigned Minister of Environment and Water, Manol Genov, who is from Asenovgrad and has been criticized for the situation, explained that the municipality has not yet prepared a single project for the construction of a water supply structure, submitted for state funding, as other cities in our country have already done.
Early on Thursday, the Water Supply and Sewerage Department announced that the malfunction had been fixed, but citizens indicate that water is still not reaching their taps, and tensions are rising. Dozens of affected people gathered in front of the municipality building as a sign of dissatisfaction.
According to a local citizen, the problem has been going on for years. "The water supply network is old, things are getting worse every year. We expect to have no water for a week", she noted.
A mother with a child says that funds are being found for various projects, but not for the crisis with accidents. And an elderly woman believes that it is not the Water and Sewerage Department, but the municipality that is to blame, because it did not provide data on the scheme of the water pipes in the city during the construction of a house. However, other of her fellow citizens specified that even without it, the water pipes are over 50 years old, which leads to frequent accidents. According to Dimitar Baberkov, 120,000 leva are needed to replace a 4 km route.
The Deputy Mayor of Asenovgrad, Eng. Stoyan Dimitrov, explained that the municipality issued a construction permit based on documents. "They were provided by the operating company, which certified that the building can be built under the building. Today we will file a case with the District Prosecutor's Office for negligence of the Water and Sewerage Department - Plovdiv. The municipality is ready to declare a state of emergency if necessary, he said.
And the protesters are ready to block roads if there are no solutions.