Weather remains hot, however, as the key EU river remains dangerously low
Budapest narrowly avoided a full nuclear shutdown on Tuesday morning as recovering water levels in the Danube allowed the country to keep its only nuclear power plant online.
“Around half past one at night we were just a few millimetres away from a complete shutdown of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, but then the water level stopped dropping,” said Peter Magyar, Hungary’s prime minister, on X.
The Danube’s record lows have prompted growing concerns in the region, with Austria facing impaired hydropower output while Romania’s nuclear power output was crippled. At its lowest, throughput in Budapest was just 723 cubic metres of water per second (m3/s), down from more than 1,000 in mid-July.
“By morning, it had risen by 1.5 centimetres,” said Magyar. “Currently the last remaining turbine is operating safely.”
