Poor weather and poorly equipped trucks have caused the hellish traffic jam on Hemus highway on Wednesday that stranded thousands of passengers, according to the heads of the bodies in charge.

"I am positive that all institutions involved did their best to cope with the emergency. It is important that this gets to the public and they know we have not underestimated the situation," said Vesselin Georgiev, executive director of Infrastructure Fund.

Georgiev, Alexi Stratiev, head of the road police, and Andrej Ivanov, head of the Civil Defence agency, were among the top officials summoned in parliament to render an account of the steps they took to cope with the impeded traffic.

The statements drew the anger of MPs from both the ruling majority and the opposition, who said the chaos was triggered by the lack of coordination between the institutions.

The long and heated discussions in parliament came a day after sluggish management in the wake of a light snowfall paralysed the traffic from the capital to the whole of Northern Bulgaria and just hours after the whole of Gabrovo region was brought to a halt and the mountain approaches were congested with cars.

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