The Danube River Has Fallen to Record-Low Water Levels, Revealing Nazi Warships, Bombs and Woolly Mammoth Bones In Its Channel
www.smithsonianmag.com

... As successive heatwaves and drought stalk much of Europe this summer, water levels on the Danube -- the continent's second-longest river, which flows through 10 countries -- have fallen to record lows in multiple places along its 1,770-mile route.

The consequences have been dramatic. Barges in Serbia can carry only a fraction of their normal cargo of imported fuel. Nuclear power plants in Hungary and Romania are at risk of having to shut down without sufficient water needed to cool their reactors, raising concerns of sweeping energy shortages. And a cruise ship in Bulgaria ran aground, prompting officials to evacuate passengers.

Meanwhile, residents and researchers are taking the opportunity to interact with the Danube in a different way: by studying -- and in some cases, removing -- the remnants from the past that have resurfaced in the parched riverbed.
Austrian ships

Near Prahovo, Serbia, a graveyard of decades-old shipwrecks is seeing the light of day. Some of the remains of World War II-era Nazi warships and roughly 200 boats are visible above the Danube's falling water line. They are relics from fall 1944, when the advancing Soviet Red Army forced Hitler's forces to retreat. Rather than risk their vessels and supplies falling into enemy hands, the Nazis strategically arranged vessels in the Danube and then scuttled them, creating a blockade to hinder Soviet movement. ...