Romanian Waters: The “the flood on the Danube has subsided”

The flood on the Danube has “reduced” in the meantime, the representatives of the Romanian Waters Authority announced. Authorities have warned, however, that levees along the river must be constantly monitored over the next seven days as they may fail due to the still higher-than-normal flow.

In mid-September, Romanian Water specialists announced that the peak of the Danube flood will reach Romania between September 28-29 and that the flow will reach maximum values ​​of up to 9,500 cubic meters per second, a significant increase compared to 3,800 of cubic meters per second, which is the average of September.

“As for the Danube, we are talking about a mitigation of the predicted flood, it is no longer so sharp. We are talking about an extension of this flood wave”, Ana Maria Agiu, spokesperson for Romanian Waters told Digi24.ro.

Currently, the peak of the flood on the Danube is estimated for the end of the week, i.e. October 3 and 4, when the flow is estimated at 7,600 cubic meters per second.

On September 30, the flow at the entrance to the country, in the Baziaș section, had a value of 7,400 cubic meters per second, almost double the September average.

“The risks that remain are related to the long duration of the flood propagation on the Danube, which we estimate can be up to seven days. The water pressure on the dikes, being so long, requires strict monitoring and increased attention”, Romanian Waters has warned.

During the weekend of September 28-29, a weekend also under torrential rain weather alerts, the authorities said they were on “high alert” and constantly provided information on the measures they had taken to reduce the risk of floods.

Also on Monday, the Minister of the Environment said that there are no more reasons for concern regarding the situation on the Danube.

“We have no reason to worry. We can state, as we did in the past, that we will have a flow rate that will not endanger a single meter of the nearly 1,200km of defense embankment on the Danube”, Mircea Fechet, the Minister of the Environment, also specified.

“The weather forecast was one that, at least in the first phase, seemed worse than what happened in reality”, explained the Minister of the Environment. He emphasized that “from the data we received this morning, we saw that those maximum values ​​were not exceeded.”

A week ago, minister Mircea Fechet conveyed that the authorities are “alerted” by the information related to the flood on the Danube and the storm last weekend.