Danube gives up trophies of war

Exactly a year after torrential flooding burst the river banks of central Europe and left a legacy of damage, the great heatwave of 2003 is hampering shipping, endangering unique wetlands and costing the weak economies of the region billions.

The river Danube, the lifeblood of central and south-eastern Europe, is at its lowest level in well over a century and the outlook gets bleaker by the day as the prayers for rain go unanswered.

The great river can now be forded on the border between Romania and Bulgaria. In eastern Serbia, Nazi battleships immersed on the river bed for almost 60 years have revealed their prows and cannon protruding from the water.

Tonnes of fish have washed up dead in Danube tributaries in Croatia. Hydrofoil traffic between Vienna and Budapest has been suspended. And parts of the prized wetlands of the Danube delta at the point where Romania meets the Black sea are being pulverised and turned to mud and dust by the blistering heat.

"The Danube is at its lowest level since records began here in 1888," said Srdja Popovic, a Serbian environment ministry official.

Rising in southern Germany and flowing almost 1,900 miles through 10 countries to the Black sea, the Danube is the second longest river in Europe and the key artery connecting the Balkans with central and western Europe. Four capital cities are built on its banks.

Romanian hydrologists calculated that at 2,359 cubic metres a second, the river's volume flow is at its lowest for 160 years.

In the delta, officials and environmentalists say, it is too soon to raise disaster warnings about the impact of the drought, but they are worried about the damage being done by the heatwave to the unique wetlands, which are designated a Unesco world heritage site and are home to rare fish, birds, wildfowl and aquatic plants.

"There is a decreased level of water and there has been serious agricultural damage, but no excessive fish deaths or ecological damage yet in the delta," said Jonathan Hornbrook, director of the Danube-Carpathian programme at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

The delta's 2,000sq miles - essentially containing no roads - comprise the largest reedbed in the world, providing a winter home to half a million geese and hosting the largest colony of pelicans outside Africa.

Its waters contain half of all the freshwater fish species found in Europe and the area is home to 300 species of birds.

While the WWF is optimistic that the delta's natural robustness will weather the heat, Romanian officials report that fires have already destroyed some 560 hectares (1,400 acres) of reed. Romania's delta reservation agency also reports that 40% of the delta water has evaporated and 10% of the wetland has become parched.

"Of course, the waters are low, and the shipping is a problem, but I am not receiving warnings of anything disastrous yet," said Mr Hornbrook.

Upstream, several incidents this week have come close to paralysing shipping on the waterway, with hundreds of barges queuing up in Romania to head north and with ships running aground in Germany and Serbia and halting traffic.

A busy Hungarian shipping company said it had suspended 95% of its operations.

As a result of the rains that deluged the region last summer, the Danube rose to 8 metres. On several stretches in Croatia, Serbia and Romania, the river has receded to just over 1 metre deep, almost 2 metres lower than normal.