Nazi ships that had sunk have reappeared in the Danube
Near the Serbian town of Prahovo, sunken German ships from World War II have once again become visible on the surface of the Danube. Due to the intense heat and the river’s significantly reduced water level this summer, their wrecks are more visible than they have been in the past 80 years.
In the fall of 1944, German naval forces were retreating under pressure from the Red Army. To prevent weapons and equipment from falling into the hands of the USSR, Nazi commanders ordered the scuttling of all vessels that could be captured by the enemy. These included squadrons operating on the Danube, but that was only part of the plan.
The Germans strategically positioned their ships to create an underwater blockade that would prevent Soviet troops from advancing upstream.
The underwater barrier, consisting of more than 200 barges, cargo ships, and tugboats, ultimately failed to stop the Allied forces, but nearly all of the sunken vessels still lie at the bottom of the Danube. Worse still, the abandoned Nazi vessels have continued to obstruct trade on this stretch of the river for more than eight decades. The European Investment Bank (EIB) estimates Serbia’s annual economic losses associated with the blockade at approximately $5.75 million.
In 2024, Serbian national authorities began collaborating with the EIB to salvage 21 sunken ships along a narrow stretch of the Danube, a process facilitated by the river’s lower water levels in the summer.
Trained crews use special pumps to clear the vessels of sediment and silt before towing some of them away, and to completely bury larger or hard-to-reach wrecks to improve navigation routes.
This is reported by Popular Science.
As a reminder, the government has funded repairs to the dam on the Danube.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has allocated 12.6 billion hryvnias for the repair and maintenance of public roads. Of this amount, 3 billion hryvnias were allocated from the state budget’s reserve fund specifically for urgent work on high-traffic state highways.
Routine repairs to the road surface on public roads have begun in Ukraine.
