Europe's rivers run dry, and history resurfaces: Century-old shipwreck emerges in Serbia's drought

The wreck of a steam tugboat dating from the early 1900s is the latest relic to emerge from shrinking waters in Serbia, as Europe's rivers run dry amid prolonged, extreme heat and drought gripping the continent.

The rusting hull, once a famed vessel known as the Slovenian, surfaced earlier this month from the Sava River near the Serbian town of Sremska Mitrovica, 70 kilometres (45 miles) northwest of the capital, Belgrade.

While parts of the wreck have appeared above the surface before, locals say it has never been this exposed.


"It's been several years since it was last seen, so there is quite an interest," said historian Andrija Popovic, head of the town museum. "It's truly something you don't see every day," he added, referring to the boat, which has been dubbed "Sava's Titanic" by Serbian media.

Warships, mammoth bones and remnants of ancient constructions have all emerged from the slumping waters of the Danube, the Rhine and other rivers as the scorching drought disrupts trade, power and water supplies across the continent.

A record-low Danube River has severely impacted nuclear power plants in Hungary and Romania and halted traffic along Europe's second-largest waterway. A monthslong drought has ravaged crops from the Netherlands to Bosnia and caused water shortages extending as high as the Alps.

A ship that survived two World Wars before it sank

According to Popovic, the Slovenian was built in 1913 at a shipyard in Budapest, Hungary, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. It measured roughly 54 metres (177 feet) in length and was initially named Vag, the Hungarian word for Slovakia's longest river, Vah. Powered by a steam engine, the boat pulled heavy cargo between Budapest and other towns along the Danube.

During World War I, the boat largely paused its routes, Popovic said. As the war ended and the Austro-Hungarian empire was dismantled, the boat's ownership switched to the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, which later became Yugoslavia, as part of war reparations.

"This is when it was renamed the Slovenian," Popovic said, adding that it remains a mystery why this particular name was chosen.

During World War II, the Slovenian, and its new country, came under Nazi German occupation. After Yugoslav anti-fascist forces liberated Belgrade in 1944, they used the boat to transfer the wounded and equipment while pushing German troops further west, Popovic said.

The boat was carrying wounded fighters when it struck a German mine in late April 1945. "It sank and has stayed in the same place since that day," Popovic said.

A shrinking Danube surrenders German ships and mammoth bones

The Slovenian is not the only relic to emerge from Europe's drying rivers. On Serbia's eastern border with Romania, the rusty remains of German ships are sticking out from the receded Danube waters. Some still laden with weapons, the ships belonged to Nazi Germany's Black Sea fleet, deliberately sunk near the end of the war as German troops retreated from Romania and Soviet forces advanced deeper into Europe.

In Italy, the worst drought in 70 years has exposed the piers of an ancient bridge over the Tiber River, once used by Roman emperors but left in disrepair since the third century.

As Danube waters shrank in Bulgaria, researchers recovered a jawbone, tusks, a shoulder blade, ribs and other bone fragments belonging to an extinct woolly mammoth, buried deep in the sand.

Experts brace for more extreme weather

Europe is the world's fastest-warming continent, with temperatures rising twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Half of the European Union and the United Kingdom was experiencing drought by late July 2026, according to the EU's European Drought Observatory, with 9 per cent of the territory at the most severe "alert" level. Scientists warn that climate change is worsening the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness.

Serbian hydrology expert Dejan Vladikovic said the current drought stems from a combination of low winter snowfall and a very dry spring. "What awaits us in the future ... is that such situations will be more frequent," he said. "We are entering periods when this will, unfortunately, become a new normalcy."

Even the mountains are feeling the strain. In the Slovenian Alps, lodges dependent on rainwater have restricted water use for climbers and hikers, including for showers and toilets. The Triglav Lodge, Slovenia's highest-altitude guest hut at an elevation of 2,515 metres (8,251 feet), is using paper plates this summer to save water on dishes.

With inputs from AP