Authorities have declared an emergency after torrential rain swept away cars, destroyed houses and forced people to scramble onto rooftops to avoid the raging torrents.
Police in the north-eastern resort town confirmed they have recovered ten bodies from the area after Thursday's deluge. Two further bodies were found in the northern city of Dobrich.
Rescuers try and help a man who is at risk of being swept away by the raging torrent in the north eastern Bulgarian town of Varna
The man is pulled from safety although he has lost his shoes, socks and trousers after being swept away by the floods in the Black Sea resort town
One of the rescuers removed his trousers before braving the flood waters to help a distressed man to safety
Varna's mayor Ivan Portnih confirmed that a state of emergency has been declared in the town's low-lying district of Aspruhovo.
Speaking to local radio, Mayor Portnih said: The tragedy is enormous. I am here on a street in the suburb of Ashprohovo. The street is not here, the houses are not here, there are cars on top of each other.'
Hundreds of cars were destroyed as the raging flood waters carried them down the street.
Floods also disrupted water and electricity services across the region as engineers struggled to reconnect supplies.
Regional police chief Nikolai Kalchev said that ten bodies were found to have been swept away by flood waters late Thursday. He could not say how many more people were missing after torrential rain flooded large parts of the coastal town.
Workers began clearing some of the debris as soon as the flood waters subsided leaving behind a trail of destruction
Experts believe that earlier flooding in Bosnia caused £1.5 billion in damage and could even reduced the country's Gross Domestic Product
A man struggles in the flood water in Varna where authorities believe an estimated 200 cars have been destroyed
The heavy rains followed weeks of drought.
Civil defence authorities believe that up to 200 homes have been either severely damaged or detroyed.
In the Kilifarevo area of central Bulgaria, 11 people were evacuated from their houses by firefighters following heavy rain and thunder storms.
Weather forecasters said a month's rain fell in Varna over the past 24 hours with further storms expected to hit north and eastern Bulgaria later today.
Prime minister Plamen Oresharski, who arrived in Varna early today, called the flooding 'a huge tragedy'.
The government has announced Monday will be a national day of mourning.
The water was so powerful it pushed several cars down the street forcing drivers to abandon their vehiclesThe flood waters carried debris which caused additional dangers for people trapped by the water Despite the dangerous conditions many motorists tried to use the roads and were pushed all over the carriageway by the surging water
Large parts of the Balkan country have been hit by heavy rain and hailstorms, and hundreds of people have been left without electricity and food supplies.
The national meteorological service said the rain that fell in eastern Bulgaria in the past 24 hours equalled the usual amount per month and warned that more was expected.
Last month Bosnia was hit by serious flooding which international experts believe caused £1.5 billion worth of damage and will even hit the country's gross domestic product. .
Ricardo Zapata Marti, head of a team of local and international experts, said GDP growth will drop from previous 2.2 percent down to 1.1 percent. They will announce a final report in two weeks.
May's floods and landslides killed 25 people, forced a quarter of Bosnia's four million people to flee their homes and devastated a quarter of the nation's territory.
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