13 days after the explosion in Bankya, the owner of the destroyed house has still not been found. The explosion demolished the house of a brother and sister, and the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office has opened pre-trial proceedings for causing death by negligence.
Georgi Kostadinov is the first firefighter who, with the help of rescue dogs, discovered the body of the woman under the exploded house in Bankya in the first hours after the explosion.
"I was at the scene of the explosion. I saw that there was a fire with heavy smoke. This is the first time I have been to something like this. We found the woman first," Kostadinov told Bulgaria ON AIR.
"The temperature that develops in such an explosion is 1000 degrees, it may even be in pieces. To this day I wonder where he could be, what happened and how, because it gives me no peace. Let's find him anyway, so his relatives can bury him, so that this man's memory can be honored," said the firefighter.
The explosion also destroyed a significant part of Yordan Ivanov's home - the twin house in which he lives with his family. The Ivanov family has been living in a hotel for days. Who will bear the costs of rebuilding their home is still unknown.
"Those first, critical days have passed, it was difficult for everyone - both for me and for the neighbors who saw what was going on, but now from here on out, we look at things differently - we look forward", shared Ivanov.
One of the main versions of the explosion is a gas installation failure. However, experts reject this possibility.
"In such residential buildings, the pressure of the gas that is supplied is millibar. When I see the damage, I think it is an explosion like from ammunition, an explosion like something very strongly compressed", commented Plamen Pavlov from the Bulgarian Gas Association.
The prosecutor's office continues to investigate the causes of the incident, and whether and when the owner of the house, who is believed to have remained under the ruins of his home, will be found is unclear.