After a very rainy May and June, heavy rainfall on July 3 and 4, 2005 produced distrastrous floods in NE Bulgaria. The floods of the Danube tributary rivers produce enormous damage to infrastructure, agriculture, industry and houses. Five men lost their lives.

The government of Bulgaria asked the European Union for help. An expert commission was established to check the extent of the flooding and the quality of damage estimations. Six experts from Bulgaria, Germany, France, Great Britain and the Netherlands examined on July 25-29, 2005 the afflicted regions. Germany was represented by Dr. Annegret Thieken of GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, member of the "Flood" expert team of the EOS Networking Platform.

The report of the expert commission is accessable here.

In August more floods occured in Bulgaria. The material damages caused by heavy rainfalls and the follow-on floods in total are more than BGL 1 billion (Euro 510 million ). On August 24, 2005 the Bulgarian government requested financial help totalling BGL 850 billion (Euro 434 million) from the EU Solidarity Fond.