Crops wilt as heat batters European shipping, farming

BUCHAREST, Romania -- A heat wave and a drought are gouging a multibillion-dollar hole into Europe's economy, crippling shipping, shriveling crops and driving up the cost of electricity.

In Romania, dredgers dug into the Danube on Monday to deepen the river bed for hundreds of stalled barges, while in Croatia, five tons of dead fish polluted a lake.

Levels on the Danube were under two yards near Bazias in southwestern Romania.

At the southern port of Zimnicea, dredgers scooped up sludge from the river bed Monday, attempting to deepen navigation channels for the 251 ships waiting to move upstream to key markets in central and northern Europe.

Croatia's major rivers -- the Sava, Drava, Kupa and Danube -- were reported at their lowest levels ever, threatening water and electricity shortages, while Serbia's ecology minister, Adjelka Mihajlov said his republic's major rivers were at their lowest in 100 years.

Heralding potential ecological disaster, Grigore Baboianu, the director of the Danube Delta Reservation, said 10 percent of the delta's unique wetlands, home to rare waterfowl and other animals, had dried up, while about 40 percent of the delta's water had evaporated.

Upstream on the Danube, ships traveling from Austria to Germany were not carrying full loads because of low water levels.

"A trip (to Western Europe) that normally took six days now takes three weeks, and we're loading only at half capacity," said Victor Crihana, director of a shipping company.

Workers at Romania's only nuclear power plant at the southern port of Cernavoda were ready to shut down its reactor if water levels fell another 3.3 feet.

In Italy, where a heat wave and accompanying drought have lasted weeks, the national grid was overloaded by the use of air conditioners, causing summer blackouts for the first time in over 20 years. The Po River, which feeds many lesser rivers in northern Italy, was at near record low levels.

Rivers in the forest areas in northwestern Croatia were so low that some systems were pumping only mud instead of water and residents had to have bottled water delivered to their doorsteps.