The search continues for one of the children who disappeared yesterday in the Struma River. The bodies of two adults and a child were found in the river in the area of the village of Pastuh. The scene of the incident is usually lively, says Vasil Vassilev, who has a guest house a few meters away, bTV reports.
He says he didn't hear anything and found out about the incident after the police arrived.
“It was very quiet – even unusually quiet, but normal, people were adults with children. I was there the whole time, trying to help the police. The child called his father, who instructed him to go up and look for help," says Vasil Vassilev.
Boats, drones and specialized equipment have been on the ground since the morning in search of a trace of the missing child.
In the afternoon, the rafting club "Kresna" also joined the operation.
„The river and the rapids will be bypassed again. We will look around again before it gets dark, because already in the dark part of the day visibility decreases and the probability of seeing anything is very small. So we are here, we were there from the first moment, we continue to be here“, says Atanas Gerginov, regional governor of Kyustendil.
“Every idea that is feasible on the spot, as long as it is safe for the employees, as well as for the volunteers, is implemented, so that this resource, which is being used to the maximum today, a large territory is covered and checked“, commented Raycho Omerski, director of the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - Kyustendil.
According to him, the situation is made more difficult by the murky water and the hard-to-reach places of the river.
“The situation is first of all the murky water and the hard-to-reach places of the river. These are the things. There are rapids in places, where, accordingly, the danger for anyone who checks the rapids is very high“, points out Raycho Omerski.
The children's relatives, as well as volunteers, are also on the ground.
“We have an unmanned drone, we are patrolling the territory. At this stage, we are not successful, we will try to look everywhere where people cannot reach“, says Stefan Georgiev, head of the “Emergency Unit“ department at the Sofia Municipality.
People say that people often come to swim or jump into the Struma from the nearby cliff.
The action continues. The authorities say that at the moment there is no need for more volunteers.