For me, the landslide in the Raykovski Livadi area is no surprise. It was described and observed back in 1983. This was said in the program “Face to Face“ by the deputy chairman of the European Center for Transport Policies Todor Batkov-son.
According to him, 20 years ago the landslide was partially stabilized. “Why it was not stabilized completely, I cannot answer. But it is a fact that this is a landslide area that is known, that the locals talk about regularly. It is not a surprise that it happened. Ultimately, we cannot stop nature“.
“It is very important to specify that after the disaster, an inspection of the Pamporovo dam was carried out by “Irrigation Systems“, which manages it. It was mainly repaired 2 years ago, it is in perfect condition, the state institutions found. There is no water leakage there“, explained Batkov-son.
According to him, one of the highest Smolensk lakes falls right above the landslide. “The suspicion is that the overmoistening of the soil comes from there, but let's give the experts time to come up with an official position. There was speculation that illegal logging was also among the causes“.
“This is speculation, because there is no logging in this particular area. There is a meadow under the road, above the road you can see that until the landslide was activated, the forest was there.
The fact is that there is a lot of illegal logging in the Smolyan region, but it is in other places. And we will still have to bear the consequences because of it“, he warned.
According to him, during the reign of Dora Yankova as mayor of Smolyan, a building permit was mysteriously obtained in a landslide area, which was described as such. “Then the investor at some point apparently realized that the area was risky and several sales of the building began. No one was going to finish it because it was on a landslide. So the building and its location are rather symbolic, because in Pamporovo there are a lot of them that show the madness of the construction boom in 2009. They will probably remain like that until nature takes them away“, commented Batkov-son.
„It is very important to specify that the landslide is in a limited area. It does not pose a risk to visitors to the resort and it is working according to a program. We can easily get to Pamporovo, the landslide is at its very end, from the Smolyan side. There are several hotels that are affected. I received assurance from the RIA that the construction of a temporary bypass road over the landslide will begin“.
„The repair will certainly take time, because the landslide is still ongoing. The processes must first be stopped, a study must be done, and most likely a bridge or even a viaduct will have to be built to hold the two foundations at both ends, where there are no subsidence processes. This will certainly take months. I hope it will happen within 2-3 years,“ he added.