Today the road town of Elin Pelin &ndash ; the village of Gara Elin Pelin will remain closed, but the perimeter will be shortened from the Retail Park to the warehouse base of the “Fantastico“ chain. This was announced by the municipal administration, BTA reported.
From there, they appeal to citizens to use the bypass route through the village of Lesnovo.
The situation with the exploded warehouses is under control and there is no danger of new explosions. Fire and police patrols are on duty on the spot, making continuous patrols, and a drone is also used for surveillance, the administration added.
The state of emergency in the city of Elin Pelin, as well as in the villages of Novi Khan and Elin Pelin Station remains in force until the fire brigade and sappers enter the scene of the firework warehouse. According to instructions from the Ministry of the Interior, this can happen 24 hours after the last explosion, the municipal administration also explained.
Five of the warehouses were completely destroyed, in the sixth, which is located some distance away, it is believed that about 2 tons of TNT equivalent are stored, BNT reported. The teams on the ground have been fighting since last night, to prevent the possibility of the fire igniting it as well.
Attempts to reach the people who remained in the burning buildings have so far been unsuccessful, and the undertaking very risky, even with military equipment.
Two people are supposed to be there. One is the owner's son. Yesterday, many of the evacuees from the Elin Pelin Station returned to their homes, some found the damage caused by the shock waves and shrapnel.
Late on Thursday evening, the 49-year-old expert from the University of Mining and Geology Petar Shishkov died, and his daughter, for whose life the doctors in "Pirogov" are fighting, has 85 percent burns.
"I am the person who filed the report at 18:25, because I am a former employee of the district office, I called the district office directly, maybe in 5-6 minutes the police came, after about 2-3 minutes the fire department came, immediately after that they arrived and the ambulance", shared Rumen Kerimov.
After the end of working hours, a security guard, associate professor Petar Shishkov, his 20-year-old daughter, the owner's 22-year-old son and a 60-year-old employee of the company remained in the warehouses. After the first explosion, the security guard was the first to rush to help the victims.
"He proceeded to the scene of the explosion and was able to literally pull out the girl and the man, subsequently 6 brave firefighters who were on the ground took a huge risk of their lives, literally walked into the roaring burning epicenter and pulled out first the docent, then pulled out the girl in a deplorable state", stated the Chief Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Dimitar Kangaldzhiev.
A survey of the situation with a drone and two attempts to enter the warehouses with special machines to save the other people already on Thursday were made by teams of an army sapper unit.
"The so-called 'desert cats', armored vehicles, we went in with them to make it safe for the people we went inside. We decided that there might be alive people and a chance to be saved, and such a thing should be done," added Valentin Radev, an explosion expert.
Both attempts were unsuccessful, and according to experts, the temperature in the warehouses exceeded 1000 degrees Celsius. New and new explosions follow.
The fire transfers the distance to the warehouse base of a large chain of stores, a fire occurs there as well. Phones are ringing with a warning from the BG Alert system with a call for evacuation.
The explosions continued throughout the night. Efforts are directed at a large warehouse which is said to be full of explosives with two tons of TNT equivalent.
"There is a warehouse that is of a quantity similar to the one that exploded so far. This warehouse has been preserved for the time being, our goal is to preserve it in its complete form, so that it does not receive the explosion of the other warehouses", added Commissioner Kiril Zhelev, Directorate of "Special Operations and Combating Terrorism".
2 helicopters are also involved in the fight against the fire. About two hours later, however, they were recalled due to the danger of a chemical reaction between the water and the substances in the warehouses. Specialized military units are ready to arrive at the scene.
"They will come all the way from Belene. This is a specialized formation, it has robots, engineering specialists who can provide help especially in field reconnaissance with robots," said Brigadier General Stanimir Yordanov, director of the "Operations and Preparation" Directorate. in the Defense Headquarters.
Human carelessness is one of the versions for the explosions.
"We have information that the professor who was there was preparing pyrotechnics for some kind of celebration on Friday, but it is most likely due to human negligence," commented Dimitar Kangaljiev, Chief Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
"The actions that will be carried out, all the actions at the scene of the accident, they will start no earlier than 24 hours after the last thunder, that is, there is simply no way to start working on the accident itself at the earliest," Interior Minister Kalin also said Stoyanov.
Clearing is being done in the areas of Elin Pelin and the village of Gara Elin Pelin in case the worst case scenario of an explosion of the last 6th warehouse comes true. The likelihood of this happening remains small.