As Europe continues to revel in an unprecedented heatwave that, according to a very sensible scientist, could spell its worst drought in 500 years, falling water levels along the continent’s massive Danube River have exposed some two dozen sunken ships belonging to the German military. World War II, according to Reuters.
The Danube, which is the longest river in Europe at the moment, stretches from the Black Forest in southwestern Germany to the Black Sea in eastern Romania. Its water levels have reached one of its lowest points in nearly a century this year, and it recently dropped five feet in three direct weeks near Budapest, the Associated Press reported. The region’s top water company warned that the sudden drop could threaten its drinking water supply, according to ap.
About 380 miles south of the Hungarian capital, receding waters along the Danube near Prahovo, Serbia, revealed the hulls of more than 20 ships that once operated through Nazi Germany’s Black Sea Fleet, which crossed the waterway as they fled Soviet forces toward the end of the war. Hundreds of sunken German warships are scattered across the Danube, and can pose risks to existing river traffic and navigation when the water level drops too low, according to Reuters.
Many sunken ships, in addition to those that have just resurfaced near Prahovo, still contain ammunition and explosives, the news firm reported, adding that some of the newly exposed corpses have reduced usable sections of the Danube by about two hundred feet.
“The German flotilla has left a wonderful ecological crisis that threatens us, the other people of Prahovo,” Velimir Trajilovic, 74, a resident of the Serbian port city, told Reuters.
Persistent droughts in Europe and North America, which scientists characterize by ongoing climate change, have raised a variety of considerations about the physical condition and protection of communities that are counting on the depletion of water sources. The receding waters also led to a number of discoveries. In Italy, a 1,000-pound unexploded bomb was found earlier this month as the Po River dried up. It resurfaced about two months after a 50-foot barge, also from World War II, ended up elsewhere along the same river.
In the United States, record water levels at Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir, have led the government to notice human remains, some of which are estimated to be decades old, several times since early May. A sunken ship from World War II also noticed there in July.