The Danube River Has Fallen to Record-Low Water Levels, Revealing Nazi Warships, Bombs and Woolly Mammoth Bones In Its Channel

Residents and researchers are finding historic and prehistoric relics of the past as Europe’s second-longest river dries

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

August 4, 2026 2:20 p.m.

Share

Copy linkEmailSMSFacebookXRedditLinkedInBlueskyPrint

Add as preferred source

As successive heatwaves and drought stalk much of Europe this summer, water levels on the Danube—the continent’s second-longest river, which flows through 10 countries—have fallen to record lows in multiple places along its 1,770-mile route.

The consequences have been dramatic. Barges in Serbia can only carry a fraction of their normal cargo of imported fuel. Nuclear power plants in Hungary and Romania are at risk of having to shut down without sufficient water needed to cool their reactors, raising concerns of sweeping energy shortages. And a cruise ship in Bulgaria ran aground, prompting officials to evacuate passengers.

Meanwhile, residents and researchers are taking the opportunity to interact with the Danube in a different way: by studying—and in some cases, removing—the remnants from the past that have resurfaced in the parched riverbed.

Near Prahovo, Serbia, a graveyard of decades-old shipwrecks is seeing the light of day. Some of the remains of World War II-era Nazi warships and roughly 200 boats are visible above the Danube’s falling water line. They are relics from fall 1944, when the advancing Soviet Red Army forced Hitler’s forces to retreat. Rather than risk their vessels and supplies falling into enemy hands, the Nazis strategically arranged vessels in the Danube and then scuttled them, creating a blockade to hinder Soviet movement.

More than 80 years later, these abandoned shipwrecks remain a significant obstacle for modern ships traveling along the Danube, especially when water levels drop, costing Serbia roughly $5.75 million in losses from disrupted trade and transport each year, Popular Science’s Andrew Paul reports.

In 2024, Serbia and the European Investment Bank launched an initiative to remove 21 ships. Crews needed to work carefully, as sudden movements or exposure to the atmosphere could trigger leftover ammunition to explode. At least two ships were instead buried into the river bottom.

“In the past, organizing such an undertaking was quite challenging, but with modern technology and techniques, it has become much more feasible,” Aleksandar Banjac, Serbia’s assistant minister of construction, transport and infrastructure, said in a statement in 2024. “Now is the right time, as river traffic and goods transport on the Danube are increasing significantly. The river is a crucial artery for Europe, and this particular section is of great interest to shippers.”

As water levels fall to historic lows, this summer may present another opportunity for crews to pull remaining boats from the river.

In the eastern Croatian village of Opatovac, a ship possibly sunk in 1937 was similarly exposed. “History has literally emerged from the Danube,” Lea Vidić, the head of the nearby municipality of Lovas, tells TVP World’s Ammar Anwer.

Amateur treasure hunters and magnet-fishers are also taking advantage of low water levels. A man named Zsolt Horváth says he enjoys pulling artifacts like an old radio amplifier and bullet casings from the world wars from the river, Fortune’s Justin Spike reports.

“Having so little water in the Danube is a blessing for this kind of activity, otherwise, it’s a curse,” Horváth tells the outlet.

To that point, officials in Budapest had to close a bridge after a remnant bomb from World War II was exposed in the riverbed.

Meanwhile, in Bulgaria, residents living along the Danube made some of the oldest discoveries yet: the remains of a woolly mammoth. Experts called to the site identified a lower jaw, two tusks, a shoulder blade and what could be a rib.

“I would not call it a sensation, but any discovery of such ancient remains is very important for science,” Nikolay Nenov, director of the nearby Regional History Museum, tells the Bulgarian News Agency, Reuters reports.

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.