The rivers separating Serbia and Romania, in the middle, near the Serbian port of Prahovo, now show a rusty hull along with a broken mast that once flew a Nazi flag.
The ships, some still loaded with weapons, once belonged to Nazi Germany’s Black Sea fleet, which the Germans deliberately sank while retreating from Romania as Soviet forces advanced deeper into Europe near the end of the war.
“They belonged to Germany’s Black Sea fleet, which the Nazis deliberately sank at the end of the war as the Soviet army pushed deeper into Europe,” the statement said.
According to historians, in September 1944, near Prahovo in the Danube gorge, up to 200 German warships were sunk when the Soviets began shelling. The deliberate sinking was intended to slow the Soviet advance in the Balkans. However, soon after, in May 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered.
The Serbian government, with the help of European Union (EU) financial support, has long been trying to do something about these ships. Some were pulled from the river by the then communist Yugoslav authorities, but most remained underwater due to the explosives they carried.
However, institutions are now trying to maintain traffic along the Danube, which flows through 10 countries, as the declining water level creates dangerous conditions. Experts link the unusually hot weather to global warming and other factors.
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Prahov resident Krsta Brandičius said that due to the low water level, ship traffic has almost stopped: “As you can see, (large) ships can no longer pass.”
Due to the record low water level of the Danube, power plants are also on the verge of closure, and governments in Central and Eastern Europe are taking measures to save electricity.
The Romanian authorities were forced to start building a temporary dam to divert water from the drought-affected river to the country’s only operating nuclear reactor.
In neighboring Hungary, the water level at the “Paks” nuclear power plant has dropped so low that only a few millimeters of water separate it from shutdown, the country’s Prime Minister Peter Magyar previously reported.
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