Historic boat emerges in Serbia as Europe’s rivers run dry

The wreckage of an old steam boat, known as the Slovenian, is visible due to the low level of the Sava river near the town of Sremska Mitrovica [AP Photo]

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, with the continent engulfed in prolonged, extreme heat and drought.

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 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of the capital of Belgrade.

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

“It’s been several years since it was last seen, so there is quite an interest,” said historian Andrija Popovic, who is the head of the town museum.

“It’s truly something you don’t see every day,” he added about the boat, which has been dubbed “Sava’s Titanic” by Serbian media.

Warships, mammoth bones and parts of ancient constructions all have emerged from the slumping waters of the Danube, the Rhine and other rivers in the scorching drought that has also disrupted trade, power and water supplies.

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 that extend as high as the Alps.

The ship survived two World Wars

According to Popovic, the Slovenian was made in 1913 in a shipyard in Budapest, Hungary, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

It measured roughly 54 meters (177 feet) in length and was initially named Vag, which is Hungarian for Slovakia’s longest river, Vah. With 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 added. 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 would later become Yugoslavia — as part of war reparations, he said.

“This is when it was renamed the Slovenian,” Popovic said, adding that it’s a mystery “why this name was chosen.”

Then, 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 hit a German mine in late April 1945, Popovic said. “It sank and has stayed in the same place since that day.”

German ships and mammoth bones

The Slovenian is not the only relic that has emerged from Europe’s drying rivers.

On Serbia’s eastern border with Romania, rusty remains of German ships are sticking out from the slumped Danube waters.

Some still laden with weapons, the ships belonged to Nazi Germany’s Black Sea fleet that was 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 which fell into disrepair by the third century.

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

Experts prepare for more extreme weather

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing 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% of the territory at the most severe “alert” level.

Scientists warn that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness.

Serbian hydrology expert Dejan Vladikovic said the current drought is the combination of a lack of winter snow 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 suffering. In the Slovenian Alps, lodges that depend on rainwater have restricted the use of water for climbers and hikers, including for showers and toilets.

The Triglav Lodge, Slovenia’s highest-altitude guest hut at an elevation of 2,515 meters (8,251 feet), is using paper plates this summer to save water on dishes. MARKO DROBNJAKOVIC & JOVANA GEC, SREMSKA MITROVICA,MDT/AP