When it began to emerge from the Danube, beneath Gellért Hill in Budapest, it meant the river had fallen so low that floating mills could no longer operate, crops were probably failing, and hunger would almost certainly follow. That is why, in the Hungarian capital, where over time the boulder became little more than a legend, it was named Ínség-szikla – the Rock of Starvation. Today, amid record-low water levels on the Danube, the rock has not only emerged from the water, but surfaced almost in its entirety, along with the sandy riverbed on which it rests, astonishing geologists and government scientists sent to examine it.
And, much as the rock was said to warn, Hungary is now facing an unprecedented energy crisis that has forced the country to shut down all but one of its Danube-cooled nuclear reactors for the first time in 44 years. The Guardian travelled for more than 100 miles (160km) along the banks of the Danube, the EU’s longest river, which sustains the 10 countries it crosses, visiting villages and towns where residents are struggling to secure drinking water and farmers are fighting to keep their crops alive. Last week, the Hungarian prime minister, Péter Magyar, warned that the economic damage caused by this year’s drought was expected to surpass that of the historic dry spell that devastated Hungary’s farmland in 2022.
While the full extent of the losses is still difficult to assess, István Somogyi, a 56-year-old farmer from Pócsmegyer, a village on the Danube, in Pest County, has already done his calculations. Since I started farming this land after the end of communist rule, I’ve never seen a catastrophe like this.” Somogyi said the unprecedented crisis did not come out of nowhere, and that the heatwaves and droughts of previous years had already offered a warning. Scientists say that human-caused climate breakdown is making every heatwave in the world more intense and more likely to happen.
But we were lucky because the Danube stayed high. Despite the intense heat, there was still enough water in the soil. This time, there is no hope of saving our crops.” On the near-deserted roads running alongside the river, families with children sought relief in the Danube’s shallow waters, while, not far away, military water tankers were siphoning water from rural wells, hauling vital supplies to the storage pools that feed the local grid.
Across the river from Pócsmegyer, on the opposite bank of the Danube, lies Szentendre, a town known for its community of artists. During the most intense days of the heatwave, some evening performances have been held by candlelight in an effort to reduce electricity consumption. Here, in recent weeks, vast, desert-like islands have emerged.
The exposed riverbed is cracked like a mosaic of hard, dry clay, baked by suffocating heat that has pushed temperatures in Budapest close to 42C, with overnight temperatures hitting a high of 28C. Europe is warming faster than any other continent, with intense summer heat and prolonged drought being amplified by the deepening human-caused climate crisis. Extreme conditions continue to fuel wildfires and strain water supplies.
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