Blackout hits Bulgaria’s Black Sea resorts

Tens of thousands of holidaymakers were left without electricity on Friday after a series of defaults on a high voltage power grid supplying power to the Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, power utilities said.
The blackout affected an area of some 60 km along the Black Sea coast, including one of Bulgaria's key summer resorts, Sunny Beach, which has a capacity to host more than 100,000 tourists, as well as the towns of Pomorie and Nessebar.
"Every place from Obzor to Aheloi is without electricity since this morning," said Joerg Sollfelner, executive director for Austria's EVN, which distributes power in southeastern Bulgaria.
"Some 56,000 of our clients, hotels, households, restaurants have no power since around 10 a.m.," he told reporters.
The town of Biala, some 80 km north of the Black Sea port of Burgas, and the holiday villages around it where power is distributed by Germany's E.ON, were also affected, the company said.
State power utility NEK said a 110 kilovolt power grid switched off at 10.45 am local time due to a burned out wire. NEK said the most likely reason for the incident was an attempt to steal the wires or to sabotage power supplies.
NEK has often complained of wire thefts that have become common in the European Union's poorest member state.
Another incident on the same grid have left the Black Sea coast without power for several hours late on Thursday when a wire tore and twisted one of the electricity poles after a technical glitch, NEK said.
The state electricity system operator said it expected to fix the cut-off wire later on Friday and introduce a power regime for the affected Black Sea areas until the end of Saturday, when it hopes to replace the twisted pole.