Dozens of cars and buses were stranded since around 7.00pm on January 2 at the cross-roads known as Patolachkata (five-pointed star) near Bulgarian town of Sliven, because of heavy snowfall, Dnevnik daily said.

According to Svetlina Georgieva, who herself was in one of the buses, people have been stuck overnight without food or water.
Among the travellers were small children. Many of the travellers were in the cold as they ran out of fuel.

The queue of cars was said to  be 6 km long. Around noon on January 3, no snow-ploughs had arrived yet.

The place where the cars were stranded was at the border between the districts of Bourgas and Yambol, and the responsibility for cleaning was said to have been shoved back and forth between the administrative regions.

The Civil Defence has assured on the morning of January 3 that army snow-ploughs were on their way to the stranded.