More than 500 residents of southwestern Bulgarian town of Sandanski walked out Tuesday evening to protest massive cutting down of trees in their town park.

Citizens rallied against a campaign of cutting down healthy old trees and changing the river bed of the local Bistritsa river, apparently to clear ground for construction purposes.

Young local people light candles and bowed their heads in silence in front of the cut down century-old trees.

60 plane trees aged over 170 years have already been cut down, with plans to make that number 160, said protesters.

"This intervention will bring a number of changes to the town's environment, which will initially be imperceptible. But even weather in Sandanski  is set to change if authorities go on," said environmentalist Blagoy Simov.

Citizens and environmentalists further protested against creating an artificial bed for the Sandanska Bistritsa river, on both aesthetic and environmental grounds.

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