Amid drought, European countries are dynamiting riverbeds to save their economies.

The heat wave that engulfed Europe in the summer of 2026 was no longer just a weather phenomenon. It had escalated into a full-blown economic crisis, forcing authorities to resort to previously unthinkable measures – from shutting down nuclear reactors to controlled explosions of riverbeds.

This is reported in a CNBC article.

Water levels in the continent's main waterways—the Rhine and Danube—have fallen to critical lows. On the Rhine, the level has dropped to 24 centimeters, the lowest since 1880. This has paralyzed shipping. According to estimates from the Kiel Institute for World Economics, Germany alone could lose up to €2 billion in GDP in the third quarter.

The energy situation is even more alarming. Romania was forced to shut down its only nuclear reactor due to a lack of cooling water. The government deployed naval forces to carry out underwater blasts on rocks near the village of Izvoarele to divert the flow of water to the Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant. Hungary's Paks power plant, which supplies 40% of the country's energy, is also at risk of closure.

Climate change has turned seasonal drought into a persistent threat. Europe's infrastructure, designed for the stable climates of the past, is bursting at the seams. Heat waves are destroying roads, reducing productivity, and creating the risk of widespread power outages. As economist Felix Schmidt noted, the European economy is growing extremely slowly, and such shocks are devastating even minimal growth.

Europe faces a new reality, where the struggle for water is becoming a struggle for economic survival.

Comments

[Umpteenth]

If it doesn't freeze, it will dry out. The narrative is changing.

[seregatara1969]

due to a lack of water to cool the Danube

Does the author even read his own work after writing it?

[Ilya-spb]

I hope they cooled the Danube well. Frozen it)))

Laughed.

[Volunteer Marek]

Yes, yes, that's what verbal balancing act is like.

[Sergey Aleksandrovich]

It all started with the firefighters, when the former began to argue that they were not the latter, and that the latter should be considered the victims, but no one agreed with them.
And then the electricians started saying that equalization and potential equalization are not the same thing.
And off it went... , a goat on the hippodrome..

[SEVERIN]

seregatara1969
+8
Today, 19: 02
New
due to a lack of water to cool the Danube

Does the author even read his own work after writing it?

- I think he's reading this: Romania has collapsed - the water temperature in the Danube has risen to a critical level, and the Danube's waters can no longer cool the only Romanian reactor - so the Romanians shut down that reactor... - and I congratulate the EU on that.

[papas-57]

"Does the author even read his own work after writing it?" Why bother? The main thing is to crow.

[Sergey Aleksandrovich]

“Do not shoot the pianist - he plays as he can”

[Evgeny64]

No, it doesn't change, what isn't frozen is drying out now, what doesn't dry out will freeze in the winter.
The climate is like this: it gets hotter in the summer and colder in the winter. They're used to living surrounded by seas, but the climate is becoming more continental; it'll soon be like in Yakutia, with 40°C in the summer and -50°C in the winter.

[Amin_vivec]

They are sometimes flooded, sometimes dried out.
This means they urgently need to invest in the construction of canals, dams on rivers, artificial reservoirs, so that when it floods they can store water, when it’s too hot they can use the stored water, and slow down the movement of rivers with dams.
But it all comes down to MONEY and the capitalist system. A capitalist will never invest money in something that won't bring in profit.
Selling air conditioners will bring in revenue, but normalizing the water balance won't. And they still have Ukraine to support, so what kind of hydraulic engineering is that?

[Evgeny64]

This is true, but we must take into account that there is no real space to build there; the outskirts of one city are already the beginning of another.
Where would they build reservoirs? Here, we could simply flood an area the size of Estonia, store water, and no one would notice.

[Amin_vivec]

Slow down the movement of existing rivers with artificial stepped rapids with the possibility of rapid spillway release.

[Vitaly161]

Heh, in the Rostov region from the end of June to mid-August the temperature rarely drops below 35 in the shade, and sometimes it stays at 40 for weeks. This is normal for us. I don’t know why these sissies are clucking, the devils are used to freebies.

[fruc]

Vitaly161
sometimes it lasts for 40 weeks

I confirm, fellow countryman. The streets are sweltering, people are sitting at home under their split-screens.

[Vitaly161]

I confirm, fellow countryman. The streets are sweltering, people are sitting at home under their split-screens.

So for us this is an annual event, I remember years when it didn’t even rain once during the whole summer So, we know how to escape from such heat, and we are used to it.
And Europe is used to the fact that summer is not particularly hot, winter is not particularly cold, they relaxed Now they have to face at least -25-30 degrees of frost this winter, and I will definitely believe in karma, because these devils deserve it

[fruc]

Vitaly161
So for us this is an annual event.

But the water level in the Don hasn't dropped, but the fish aren't being caught, they're all in the holes and in the fairway, there aren't even any bites.

[Fan-fan]

The Irtysh River's water level has dropped, but the fish are still biting. Even in the channels, large pike are being caught.

[Alexey Koshkarov]

They don't release water from the Ob River dams. The water level is high. And I've never had any problems with fishing. I release all the usual fish. I only catch grayling, ruff, perch, and pike perch. I also have boiled crayfish with beer for dinner in the evenings.

[Sergey Aleksandrovich]

The same thing, they say, is surprising, but it doesn’t catch in the lower reaches of the Volga either.

[aybolyt678]

Quote: Vitaliy161

Now they have to face at least -25-30 degrees of frost this winter, and I will definitely believe in karma, because these devils deserve it

Let's hope that average annual temperatures and precipitation will turn summer heat into winter frost and summer drought into floods.

[Al_com]

because these devils deserve it

You can’t argue
But, to be fair, last winter was very unusual in terms of the amount of snow, and we haven’t had frosts like this in Novosibirsk for a very long time.
Summer too - June - I don’t think there was a single rain, the temperature the whole month was 27-32.
July - more rain, but the temperature is the same.
This is NOT the norm for our region.

[Vitaly161]

But, to be fair, last winter was very unusual in terms of the amount of snow.

Here it’s the other way around: winter itself is warmer, but there’s more snow, summer is as usual, today it’s 36-37 in the shade, tomorrow 38, next week it will slowly drop to 28-30.

[carpenter]

Quote: frruc

I confirm, fellow countryman. The streets are sweltering, people are sitting at home under their split-screens.

We had +25 for a few days, and then all summer it was between +19 and +22, two days without rain, rain on the third, or sometimes three days with rain. Beautiful!

[Shooting]

It's just that the migrants took their climate with them to spend their benefits more comfortably.

[mixpetroff]

Author, do you yourself understand what you are writing?
The Rhine's water level dropped to 24 cm, but what was it 25? Or maybe the water level for ships dropped? And it's actually only 6 meters?
And the reactor shutdown due to a lack of water to cool the Danube is a masterpiece!
I didn’t know that the Danube was cooled!

[pudelartemon]

Romanians have always been a bit dumb. What's so surprising?

[Tagan]

I didn’t know that the Danube was cooled!

Well, that's what Europe is, it turns out. "The Garden of Eden," not some hodgepodge. It's us here, the bast-shoe wearers.

[Brturin]

Quote from: mixpetroff

Author, do you even understand what you're writing? The Rhine level dropped to 24 cm, but what was it 25?

The author uses material from the Germans themselves - https://www.bild.de/regional/nordrhein-westfalen/rhein-historischer-tiefstand-verkehrsminister-fordert-taskforce-6a6f417fd75325eb7c4b44fa -

The article also states that in Duisburg-Ruhrort, the water level reached 149 cm, 2 cm lower than the previous record low, set on August 17, 2022. In Düsseldorf, the water level dropped to 21 cm. https://regnum.ru/news/4053046

You need to look at a specific place - in the upper reaches there is one level, in the lower reaches another...

[mixpetroff]

It's great that the author quotes Germans, but we're Russian. I don't think we should just copy texts without understanding the meaning.

[South Ukrainian]

The heat wave that engulfed Europe in the summer of 2026 was no longer just a weather phenomenon. It had escalated into a full-blown economic crisis.

Is Russia again to blame?

[pudelartemon]

And there's no one else. Climate weapons, you know. We know who drank the tap water, but who drank the Danube...

[single-n]

Khly. So that the yew river becomes shallow and easier to swim across!!!

[pudelartemon]

What for!
(I don't consider this message short)

[cat Rusich]

Quote: South Ukrainian

The heat wave that engulfed Europe in the summer of 2026 was no longer just a weather phenomenon. It had escalated into a full-blown economic crisis.

Is Russia again to blame?

As soon as people from the South (Africa, the Middle East...) started to migrate into Europe, the heat started to appear; apparently, the refugees brought the heat with them...

[OlegEKB]

All the precipitation was carried to us in the Urals, for the third month it has been raining raining raining

[papas-57]

"All the precipitation has been dragged to us in the Urals; it's been raining, raining, raining for three months now." And the Urals are a godforsaken place when it comes to summer weather, even for democrats. The last time we had a hot summer was 2010.

[Sergey Aleksandrovich]

That's for sure, there's more water in the Volga than ever before, it probably comes from the Kama.

[16112014nk]

The Garden of Eden is turning into hell. And that's good.

[Vasilenko Vladimir]

Quote: 16112014nk

turns into hell

next year is the year of the fire goat

[Vasilenko Vladimir]

Europe faces a new reality, where the struggle for water is becoming a struggle for economic survival.

Now they'll remember Russia and how it "illegally" owns a huge amount of fresh water.

[Vitaly161]

Now they'll remember Russia and how it illegally owns a huge amount of fresh water.

So, since the time of Thatcher, nothing has changed, and they are interested in not only fresh water reserves.

[Zheka111]

It's not the first time for them.
They'll save themselves with solar panels and wind turbines, and open coal-fired power plants. Europeans are thrifty—they're sure to have everything stocked up in warehouses.
Another thing is that their well-fed and carefree life is over.
Although our oligarchs must maintain the standard of living in their beloved Paris and Milan

[Kerensky]

in the main waterways the continent – Rhine and Danube

Modest... But I feel sorry for the Volga!

[Andrey Nikolaev_4]

Well, there is no doubt that for Germany 2 billion per QUARTER is a fatal blow!

[andrey martov]

This is what the "life-giving" US HARRP can do...

[alexoff]

On the Rhine, the level dropped to 24 centimeters, the lowest since 1880. This has paralyzed shipping, with cargo barges forced to sail underloaded.

Maybe I'm missing something, but how can barges even navigate such depths? The water is less than knee-deep.

[Kusja]

Well, because the author acted like AI and tacked all sorts of nonsense into the article. Read it again and see for yourself.

[SEVERIN]

We fought for our ecology - nature does not tolerate neglect.

[rocket757]

Water is LIFE!
By the way, alternative energy in such conditions becomes... well, it just doesn't become, it'll die in no time!
The problem of OVERHEATING is a risk for everything at once... although classical energy, such cataclysms pass more successfully, that's a fact... of course, where it still exists, in normal, working condition!

[Glagol1]

The best climate is in the central part of European Russia. In winter, it doesn't drop below -30°C, and then only briefly; in summer, it reaches up to +30°C, but the average is +25°C. We sleep without air conditioning—at night, it's +13°C to +18°C. Swimming is possible from June to the end of August. There aren't many sunny days, that's true, but overall, it's nice here.

[Sergey Aleksandrovich]

We know your best climate! When -30C hits in winter, you can't stop!

[koksalek]

and they still have winter ahead of them, the gayropics are stirring in their occupied swamp

[Rusfaner]

Europe faces a new reality, where the struggle for water is becoming a struggle for economic survival. (c)

The hopes of young men are nourished! (c)
I've been hearing this story for over 60 years. The most one can hope for is the "liberation" of several million people from labor and income, the formation of an army of people concerned with "living space," and another "Onslaught on the East."

[Vadim Isaev]

The West once again suggests how to use the natural factor for its own purposes, and Ukrainians They've been successfully implementing a water blockade of Crimea. For years, we've been talking and writing about whether it's time to address the Dnieper—its source, a significant stretch of riverbed within Russian territory. There are even proposals to change the riverbed's flow to the Volga. Or, as always, are we not that into it?