Nazi warships, human remains surface as record heat dries up Danube River
· Toronto Sun
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Nazi warships and human remains have been exposed in the Danube River more than 80 years after the Second World War as the waterway has receded due to a record heatwave.
Several vessels, some of which are believed to still contain weapons, were visible from sandbanks or were partially submerged along the Serbia and Romania river border earlier this month, reports The Guardian .
Attempts were made by past Serbian governments to remove the shipwrecks, but the presence of explosives delayed those efforts.
The wrecks were from Adolf Hitler’s Black Sea fleet, which the German military deliberately sank as a way to slow down Russian forces as they retreated from Romania, historians have said, as up to 200 German warships went down in September 1944. Germany ultimately surrendered in May 1945.
Dangerously low water levels
The Danube, which flows through 10 nations, has seen its waters recede this summer to dangerously low levels, which has impacted shipping traffic this summer.
“As you can see, the (big) ships can’t pass anymore,” Krsta Brandic, a Prahovo, Serbia resident, told The Independent .
Hungary’s Water Authority revealed that the Danube’s water level in Budapest dropped last Thursday close to its record low eight years ago.
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Countries across Europe have seen temperatures rise to record levels this summer, according to The Guardian .
Austria, Slovakia and Hungary recorded highs of 41.2°C, 42.2°C and 41.8°C respectively due to a heat dome. In some areas, overnight temperatures hovered around 28°C.
Human remains exhumed
Also earlier this month, the German War Graves Commission led efforts to exhume human remains from the war on the shore of the Danube in Budapest, across from the Hungarian Parliament building.
A recovery specialist from the agency retrieved the remains of two German soldiers from the riverbed, the organization announced last Friday, after being discovered on Aug. 2.
Their bodies were found alongside a German military motorcycle and several anti-tank mines. Bomb disposal experts were deployed to safely remove the explosives.
In Slovakia, a large British bomb was discovered and recovered by local police. It was loaded onto a “specially modified firefighter vehicle with a sand bed, which ensured its safe transport” and was detonated in a five-metre-deep pit.