Record Low Water Levels on Danube Disrupt Tourism, Economies From Germany to Black Sea

Record low water levels on one of Europe’s most-traveled waterways are upending tourism, disrupting cargo traffic, and forcing the shutdown of nuclear power plants reliant on the water for cooling.The Danube River, which passes through 10 countries on its way from Germany to the Black Sea, is as shallow as nine inches in places, exposing normally submerged shoals and shipwrecks and rendering some stretches of the river unnavigable.The lack of water is attributed to months of hot, dry weather that have plagued Europe this summer, with successive waves of 100-plus-degree temperatures that are also blamed for record wildfires threatening major cities in France and Spain.Weather forecasters were offering little hope of improvement, with temperatures up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit predicted in coming days across the river basin and no rain in sight.On Tuesday, the cruise ship Viking Ullar ran aground on a sandbank in Bulgaria, forcing the ship’s 186 passengers to be evacuated. Viking River Cruises took the passengers by bus on a five-hour drive to Bucharest, Romania, where they arrived at 2:00 a.m. Other cruise lines are being forced to dock miles from their scheduled port stops and ferrying passengers by bus to popular tourist cities like Deggendorf, Regensburg, and Nuremberg. In some cases, passengers are being ferried by bus around unnavigable stretches of the river and then reboarded onto different ships.Hungary has shut down its Paks Power Plant, seen here at Dunaszentbenedek on July 31, 2026, because the water intake pipes to cool the reactors can no longer reach the river. Janos Kummer/Getty ImagesThe disruptions are a blow to the economies of the river cities, which count on as many as 400,000 cruise passengers to pass through each summer, including 150,000 to 200,000 Americans. “The summer season is over now, as far as boat-riding is concerned,” one tourist operator told the Associated Press.Commercial traffic on the river is also impacted, with Serbia’s energy minister saying barges and tankers are operating at just 30 to 40 percent of capacity, according to Reuters. The minister was quoted saying the country’s fuel imports were at just 25 percent of the monthly target for July.Cargo shipping has stopped almost entirely in sections of Hungary, and many upstream river ports in Romania are completely closed to barges, according to the AP. The impasse has stymied Ukrainian efforts to use the river as an alternative to the embattled Black Sea to get its grain to European markets.Energy production is also being throttled by the water shortage, which has forced the shutdown of nuclear power plants in at least two countries for want of coolant. Authorities in Romania shut down a reactor at its Cernavoda power plant on Tuesday, while Hungary on Thursday announced a total shutdown of its Paks nuclear plant, which provides nearly half of the country’s electricity, because the pipes carrying water to cool the reactors can no longer reach the river.

Record Low Water Levels on Danube Disrupt Tourism, Economies From Germany to Black Sea

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