Europe floods: Hungary Danube set for record high

BBC News: Hungarians have been warned to prepare for their country's worst floods ever as the Danube is set to reach record levels this weekend. "We are facing the worst floods of all time," said PM Viktor Orban.

Europe's second-longest river is set to hit unprecedented levels in the capital Budapest in the next few days. A state of emergency has been declared, and thousands of volunteers have been working to reinforce the banks of the swelling river.

Water levels are set to reach 8.85m (29ft), some 25cm (10in) higher than the Danube's previous record high in 2006. Emergency workers have set up camps along the river as residents packed sandbags around their homes amid an atmosphere of concerned expectation, says the BBC's Nick Thorpe in Budapest.

Kristalina Georgieva, the EU Commissioner for International Co-operation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, tweeted: "Hungary well prepared for highest ever measured water levels on Danube. We are monitoring & ready to assist."...

High water in Linz, Germany, in February 2013, shot by Liberaler Humanist, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Persistent drought in Romania threatens Danube's power

Mirel Bran in the Guardian (UK): In Cernavoda, a small town in southeast Romania, social housing projects stretch all along the left bank of the Danube. The now dilapidated buildings sprang up in the 1970s and 1980s, after the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu decided to build the country's first nuclear power plant there.

In his ambition for power and prosperity, he also ordered a canal to be built from Cernavoda to Constantza, a port on the Black Sea, to shorten the trade route by 400km. The excavations were done by thousands of political prisoners, many of whom died.

Today, 21 years after the fall of communism, the threat to Cernavoda is not from dictatorship but the drought that has hit Romania since August. "Look at the water level," said Vasile Mogos, who lives in a council flat by the river. "I would never have imagined that the Danube could fall so low."

The Danube crosses Europe from west to east over 2,850km, from its source in Germany's Black Forest to the Black Sea in Romania. In its path Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania all exploit the waters of Europe's second-longest river after the Volga.

The first reactor in the Romanian nuclear power plant, which uses Canadian CANDU reactor technology based on natural uranium and pressurised heavy water, came on stream in 1996. A second reactor was built in 2007, and three others are planned, since the Romanian government counts on nuclear power for energy self-sufficiency. The two reactors in the Cernavoda plant generate 20% of those needs and were built on the banks of the Danube to use its waters for cooling.

Early this month, the Danube's flow rate in Turnu-Severin, a town in southwest Romania, home to the country's largest hydroelectric power plant, was 2,400 cubic metres per second, 63% of the usual average of 3,800 cubic metres per second. Hidroelectrica, the public corporation in charge of delivering the energy produced by the plant, is generating only 1,800MW instead of the usual 2,100 MW...

The nuclear power plant in Cernavoda, Romania, shot by Bogdan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Hungary toxic sludge reaches Danube branch

Mark Tran and agencies in the Guardian (UK): A toxic red mud spill that killed four people in western Hungary has reached the Mosoni-Danube, a southern branch of the Danube, Hungarian disaster officials said today. Tibor Dobson of Hungary's national disaster unit told Reuters the spill reached the branch of Europe's second-longest river near Hungary's border with Slovakia and Austria this morning.

But Dobson said the highly caustic slurry has been reduced to the point where it is unlikely to cause further damage to the environment. The pH level of the sludge, originally above 12, is now under 10, he said. However, a harmless level is between 6 and 8.

There are fears that the toxic torrent will cause serious ecological damage to the Danube after being carried downstream by tributaries. The sludge is expected to reach the river by the weekend or early next week....

Emergency flood defense in Belgrade

B92 (Serbia): The public waterworks company Beogradvode began an emergency defense from the flooding of the Danube River in Belgrade. The level of the river in the Belgrade neighborhood of Zemun is at 651 centimeters, and the limit before calling an emergency situation is 650.

Beogradvode stated that the cause of the increase of the water level is the current of the river, adding that the peak of the flood wave in Belgrade is expected late on Sunday and early Monday morning. The emergency defense entails a non-stop monitoring of the situation and work to stop negative effects of the floods on surrounding infrastructure….

Satellite image of the position of future Chinese Bridge in Belgrade, via NASA