A drought has exposed World War II-era ships on the Danube
Record-low water levels in the Danube due to a severe drought have exposed dozens of sunken German ships from World War II. On the Serbian-Romanian border, in the middle of the river on a sandbar that is usually submerged, the wreckage of one of the ships has become visible.
Other ships remain partially submerged. According to The Guardian World, some of them may still contain weapons. These vessels were part of Adolf Hitler’s Black Sea Fleet, which the German military deliberately sank at the end of the war to slow the advance of Soviet troops.
Historians estimate that up to 200 German warships were sunk in this manner in September 1944. Nazi Germany surrendered in May 1945. The wreckage had already surfaced during previous droughts, only to disappear beneath the water again as water levels rose.
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Serbian authorities had previously attempted to remove the sunken vessels, but most of them remained in place due to the explosives they were carrying. Remnants from World War II have also been discovered in other parts of the Danube, including a German military motorcycle in Budapest.
In Slovakia, police recovered a 700-kilogram British bomb that had failed to explode. The munition was transported by a specially equipped fire truck to a five-meter-deep pit, where it was detonated. In 1944, the Royal Air Force of Great Britain mined the Danube to hinder the movement of enemy troops.
The Danube, which flows through ten countries, is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate due to low water levels. Prolonged droughts have also lowered water levels in other major European rivers, complicating operations at power plants that rely on water for cooling.
