No Interruptions in Bulgaria's Cell Phone Services over Quake

The earthquake that hit Bulgaria overnight had a magnitude of about 5.9-6.0 on the Richter scale, with the epicenter located about 6 km from the western city of Pernik. Photo by www.emsc-csem.org

Bulgaria's three main mobile operators report that their network never experienced interruptions or difficulties during and in the aftermath of the strong earthquake that hit overnight.

The earthquake had a magnitude of about 5.9-6.0 on the Richter scale, up from the initial reports of 5.8 and struck at 2:58 am Tuesday morning. Its epicenter is located about 6 km from the western city of Pernik and is at a shallow depth, making the shocks felt even stronger.

The networks functioned normally during the entire time and thousands of Bulgarians were able to connect to family and friends, the GLOBUL, M-Tel, and Vivacom press offices report Tuesday.

GLOBUL say that in the first hours after the quake the company has registered 20 times more calls and 7 times more short text messages, SMS, than the normal traffic at that time of night. In the areas near Pernik and the capital Sofia, GLOBUL customers have conducted 1.5 million phone conversations between 3 am and 5 am Tuesday. The network had been stable immediately after the fist and strongest shock and did not experience any damage in it and interruptions in the phone traffic.

There is no damage in the M-Tel network either and it had been able to handle the phone traffic in the hours after the first shock despite the 20 times increase as well. The network is currently stable and functioning normally.

Vivacom has registered a 30 times increase in phone traffic in the minutes after the quake hit, and also report no damage in their network or interruptions in services.

Despite the strong shock, there are no reported casualties, no serious injuries and no significant national infrastructure damage either.

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