Torrential rains swamp village, derail train in Bulgaria

Torrential rains and snowstorms lashing southern Bulgaria broke a dam wall early today, submerging the small village of Biser under 2.5 metres (eight feet) of water, the emergency services said.

Landslides derailed the locomotive of a train from Belgrade to Istanbul near Svilengrad on the Turkish border, causing no injuries but leaving at least a dozen foreigners stuck for more than six hours.

No casualties have been reported in the village of Biser , but civil defence force chief Nikolay Nikolov told national radio that he feared some people may have drowned.

Several teams of rescuers, a special army unit and helicopters were dispatched to the village of some 800 inhabitants to evacuate people.

"People are in panic. Ninety percent of the village is under water," regional mayor Mihail Liskov said on the radio.

Nikolov warned that two bigger dams in southern Bulgaria -- Ivaylovgrad and Studena -- were on the brink of overflowing and that people in the region should also be ready to evacuate.

A code red alert for stormy weather was declared in two regions in the Rhodope mountains to the south.

The village of Nedelino remained in a state of emergency for a second day Monday over massive landslides. The region was hit by over 100 litres of rain per square metre over just 24 hours Sunday.

Weather services meanwhile forecast that an expected drop in temperatures to -17 degrees Celsius (1.4 Fahrenheit) this week will yield snowstorms in the coming days.

A cold snap end-January with temperatures as low as -31.4 degrees Celsius (-24.5 Fahrenheit) had left over 16 people dead, local media reported.