Snowstorms wreak chaos in Bulgaria and Romania
SOFIA/BUCHAREST- Snowstorms paralysed traffic and cut electricity to hundreds of thousands of people in Bulgaria on Friday while forcing atomic energy producer Nuclearelectrica in neighbouring Romania to shut down its No. 1 reactor.
Blizzards caused power blackouts in more than 770 Bulgarian towns, authorities said. It also closed parts of the Trakiya motorway in southeastern Bulgaria, all roads in a swathe of the northeast and the main A-2 motorway linking the Romanian capital Bucharest with the Black Sea port of Constanta.
State-owned Nuclearelectrica said it had disconnected its No. 1, 706-megawatt reactor on the Danube river from the national grid because of heavy snow that interfered with a power evacuation line. Nuclearelectrica's two reactors supply about a fifth of Romania's electricity.
The fierce winter weather also forced the closure of Varna airport on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast for at least eight hours, delayed dozens of flights at Bucharest international airport.
