Europe’s summer of extreme heat and drought has brought its rivers to historically low levels, unveiling a trove of long-submerged relics across the continent. In Bulgaria, the receding waters of the Danube revealed the remains of what is believed to be an ancient mammoth, including a lower jaw, tusks, and possible rib bones, discovered near the village of Ryahovo. The director of the Regional History Museum in Ruse confirmed the find, with the bones now set to undergo testing for verification. The Danube, Europe’s second-largest river spanning ten countries, has also exposed a 1937 Hungarian cargo shipwreck, the Fulton, in Croatia, and the remnants of a sunken Nazi warship in Serbia, offering a stark glimpse into history against the backdrop of a rapidly drying landscape.
The unprecedented heatwaves, which scientists attribute to the human-driven climate crisis, have not only fueled destructive wildfires but also placed immense strain on Europe’s water resources. In Budapest, the Danube’s water level plummeted to just 9 inches on Wednesday, breaking the previous record low of 13 inches set in 2013, with no significant rainfall forecast to provide relief. This has triggered a cascade of consequences, from disrupted shipping and tourism to energy generation crises. Hungary’s Paks Nuclear Power Plant, which supplies nearly half of the country’s electricity, was forced to shut down entirely—a first in 44 years—as the record-low river levels compromised its cooling system, prompting Prime Minister Peter Magyar to warn of a potential energy crisis.
Across the continent, other rivers are suffering similarly, with the Rhine in Germany exposing massive sandbars and cargo ships forced to reduce their loads to avoid running aground, slowing trade and increasing costs. Tourist hotspots have not been spared either; Lake Brenets on the Swiss-French border has nearly dried up as the River Doubs feeding it shrank, leaving boats stranded on the exposed lakebed. The severity of these conditions has prompted scientists to issue urgent warnings, noting that such summers are becoming increasingly common. Hannah Cloke, a Regius professor of meteorology and climate science at the University of Reading, emphasized that “the heat dries the soil, empties the rivers, and drives up demand for water all at once—that is the fingerprint of a changing climate,” adding that conditions will worsen “as long as we burn fossil fuels, that is the plain physics of it.”
Ez a cikk a Neural News AI (V1) verziójával készült.
Forrás: https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/31/climate/shrinking-rivers-reveal-past-relics-in-europe.