Ice Halts Shipping Along the Danube

Bulgaria and Romania have suspended shipping on the Danube River due to severe frost and the vast amount of ice blocking the heavily traveled waterway.

Up to 90 percent of the river surface is covered with floating ice, making it extremely difficult to traverse Europe's main commercial waterway, which winds 2,860-kilometers from Germany and serves as the natural border between Bulgaria and Romania.

"For the past two weeks, navigation on the Danube has practically stopped," Mladen Ganchev, owner of Holleman Bulgaria, reports. "And not only the Danube is frozen, but its Romanian connection to the Black Sea – the Chena Voda canal to Constanta."

The Main-Danube canal is also frozen making the navigation between Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp region and the Black Sea via the internal river system impossible, Ganchev said.

Since late last week ice has also halted shipping on 440 miles (700 kilometers) of the Danube in Romania, an official from the Romanian Transportation Ministry told The Associated Press. Six river crossings were also closed due to the ice.  Upstream, the river was also iced over in parts in the Serbian capital of Belgrade. Hungarian authorities have also directed vessels to head for the closest harbor.

Shippers say that the closures are costing millions of euros. 

Photo shows the frozen Danube River. Credit: Kanal Korisnika.