Overview
- Prime Minister Péter Magyar confirmed on Friday that the Paks plant was fully disconnected because the Danube has fallen below the intake needed for reactor cooling.
- Paks typically supplies roughly half of Hungary’s electricity and its loss has prompted emergency calls for household and industrial savings and increased reliance on imports to steady the grid.
- Romania has reduced output at Cernavoda and used controlled blasts to redirect water toward the river, while Serbia’s main hydropower plant is operating near 20% capacity and river navigation has been severely curtailed.
- Record low flows have exposed more than 200 World War II German vessels near Prahovo and revealed woolly mammoth bones near Ruse, creating both archaeological interest and safety risks from possible unexploded ordnance.
- Scientists and officials link the crisis to prolonged drought and repeated heat waves and say short-term engineering fixes and demand cuts are under way while longer-term river and energy adaptations are being planned.