At least seventy three cities and towns across Bulgaria will turn off the lights at their main buildings to join the Earth Hour initiative, the environment group WWF announced.

Earth Hour will be held in Bulgaria on Saturday, March 30, between 8:30 pm and 9:30 pm, when electric lights will be shut down as a reminder about climate change and the need to reduce our imprint. Street lighting will be kept on for safety reasons.

This will be the country's fifth participation in the event.

In Sofia, lights will be shut down on official buildings across the city such as the Presidential Office, the Parliament, the building of the Central bank, and of the ministries. Buildings of significance, like the National Theater, the National Library, the Military Club, the National Gallery of Art, the Alexander Nevski Cathedral, churches, museums, hotels, and many others will be also left dark.

A procession of the light will be held in the capital, starting at 8:30 pm from the park in front of the National Theater and ending at the National Palace of Culture.

On Earth Hour people around the world will switch off their lights and power appliances for one hour, the action being a mainly symbolical global call to action to every individual, business and every community throughout the world to save energy and help prevent the deterioration of the global climate.

The idea behind it is for people to gather, to spend some time with friends in "peace and quiet", and have time to reflect on "themselves and their lives", according to the WWF.

The idea for Earth Hour originated in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, when 2,2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change.

The Australian initiative proved highly popular around the world and a year later Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries joining in.

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