European Drought

The Rhine's water level at Cologne fell to 68 centimetres on Friday morning, breaking the previous record low of 69 centimetres set in October 2018, after a prolonged heatwave and drought shrank the river in both depth and width.

Duisburg-Ruhrort sank to a historic low of 153 centimetres and is forecast to drop to 152 centimetres by late evening, while Düsseldorf is expected to set a new negative record of 22 centimetres early Saturday. At Emmerich, near the Dutch border, forecasters predict the gauge will read zero on Sunday morning rather than the minus three previously anticipated. South of Koblenz at Kaub, navigation for large commercial barges has become impossible.

The drought's toll is widening beyond the Rhine. Hungary and Romania were forced to shut down nuclear power stations because of low water on the Danube, and Hungary's Lake Balaton has dried up, triggering booking cancellations.

Nineteen of Italy's 27 major cities faced the highest-level heat alert on Friday, with Florence recording temperatures up to 39 degrees Celsius as the country endures its fourth heat wave of the summer. The Health Ministry predicted that 23 cities will reach red-alert status by Sunday, with Terni expected to hit 41 degrees. The Po River at Cremona has fallen below its 2022 record low, and irrigation withdrawals have been slashed across Veneto.

The crisis has deepened across the continent. The World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control calculated 10,000 excess deaths in Europe in the last week of June alone. Wildfires in Spain and France have forced more than 300,000 evacuations, while low Danube water levels have shut down the Paks nuclear plant in Hungary and a facility at Cernavoda, Romania.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that El Niño is adding fuel to an already burning planet, as sea-surface warming exceeds three and a half degrees. Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri accused the government of leaving municipalities to cope alone.

Remains of a woolly mammoth have been exposed in the bed of the Danube River in Bulgaria, where an extreme drought has driven water levels to historic lows.

A resident of the village of Ryahovo discovered a lower jaw, two tusks, a shoulder blade and ribs on July 29, 2026. Nikolay Nenov, director of the Regional Historical Museum, confirmed the bones belong to a mammoth. Specialists from the museum in Ruse have begun recovering and transporting the remains, though large portions of the skeleton may still lie buried in sand at the site, which was once a swamp.

The woolly mammoth roamed the region between 7,000 and 10,000 years ago. The Danube's water level has remained extremely low for weeks, revealing relics normally hidden beneath the river.

Record-low water levels on the Danube have forced nuclear plants in Hungary and Romania to curtail operations, as the river's decline disrupts power generation, shipping, and tourism across southeastern Europe.

The Paks plant in Hungary shut down one reactor and reduced another unit's output to roughly 60 percent of capacity. Romania's Cernavoda plant is idling both reactors, with the second unit scheduled for a controlled shutdown on July 30. The crisis has stranded about 15 hotel ships on the Hungarian stretch, while Bulgarian border police evacuated 186 passengers from the Viking Ullur after it ran aground. Serbia imported only 25 percent of its targeted fuel in July, and DDSG Blue Danube has cut services in Austria.

Falling waters have exposed World War II German fleet wrecks near Prahovo, mammoth remains in Bulgaria, and a WWII bomb in Croatia. World Weather Attribution found climate change made the drought roughly 11 times more likely.