A severe drought has hit the Danube River, which reached a historic low level of 23 centimeters in Budapest, well below the previous record of 33 centimeters set in 2018. In Bulgaria, 186 tourists were evacuated from a cruise ship that ran aground near Vidin after running out of food and water. Several nuclear reactors in Romania and Hungary had to be shut down due to insufficient cooling water, with the Danube’s flow falling to about a third of the typical July average. Precipitation over the past 90 days is 80-130 millimeters below multi-year averages across much of the region, and levels are expected to continue falling with temperatures exceeding 38 degrees Celsius.
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