The ski slopes of Bulgaria’s rapidly expanding resort of Bansko were closed on Thursday and Friday last week after a bomb threat was delivered by letter to the Bulgarian Ministry of the Environment and Waters and to Bulgarian media.

The letter, claiming to be from an un-named ecological organisation, stated that a bomb had been placed somewhere on the ski runs. It said that the explosion would set off avalanches. Bansko’s Mayor Alexander Kravarov was an attack on Bulgaria as well as his resort. He doubted very much that there really was a bomb but was outraged at the disruption to the holidays of foreign tourists. Ultimately the resort decided to set off avalanches itself on Saturday to remove the risk of any device that might exist causing a problem if it did explode.

Development at Bansko has come under increasing criticism from environmental groups in recent months with the WWF in the area publishing a report a little over a week ago claiming that the thirds of development was essentially illegal as it was on national park land and had not been properly authorised with a full legally-required environmental assessment. The rapid development has been largely fuelled by buyers from the UK and Ireland.

The last known eco-terrorist-type incident in a ski resort was the fire bombing of several buildings at Vail in Colorado in the late 1990s by a group protesting their terrain expansion in to Blue Sky Basin.