Two hundred people from the village of Chelopechene, east of Sofia, where a military warehouse exploded in the early hours of July 3 2008, have been evacuated to 170th Vassil Levski high school in Kourilo village, Sofia city hall said in a statement on its website.

Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov has ordered the supply of seven buses for the evacuation of people living in and around Chelopechene. Children from the kindergarten in Kazichene village will be transferred to the kindergarten in Pancherevo neighbourhood, the city hall said.

After the blasts, Borissov asked for the evacuation of all people living in the area, although no one has been reported as injured until now.  He was backed by Bulgarian Army Chief of Staff General Zlatan Stoykov. Explosions are expected to continue during the day with firefighters waiting in the area to intervene when safe.

The Ministry of Emergency Situations published a list with advises to the people living in the are of the explosions on its website. “We call upon people to remain calm and avoid panic. We recommend them to: limit their stay outdoors; to keep children indoors; if necessary to use wet towels or other suitable material when breathing; close the windows and limit the inflow of unclear air; if windows have been broken by the blast to cover them with wet sheets; to stay away from broken windows in case of new explosions”. 

After the first massive blast which some witnesses have already described as a “large smoke cloud mushroom into the sky”, the Environment Ministry said that there was no danger of leakage of noxious gasses amid speculations that the cloud might turn to Sofia.

A 80 50 300 hot-line for people who were injured as a consequence of the explosions was launched by Bulgaria's national medical coordination centre.