The drought in Germany is causing the water level in the Rhine to drop further, in some cases even below zero. This makes the transport of goods much more difficult - ships are only half loaded and often have to reload goods. But passenger shipping is also suffering, and there is hardly any improvement in sight.
The level house on the Rhine promenade in Emmerich is a popular destination for tourists. On Tuesday afternoon there was an extremely unusual sight for them: the large pointer on the yellow indicator circle of the Rhine level on the brick house was just below zero. A Rhine level in the minus - state of emergency on Germany's most important river. "The Rhine is an artery in Europe," says Martin Wolters, head of the Waterways and Shipping Authority (WSA) in Emmerich. "It's a lot tighter here now."
After months of drought, the water level in the city near the Dutch border fell first to zero and then temporarily to minus one centimeter. Commercial shipping still has the fairway with a depth of 1.96 meters. In the bank area, however, the heavy cargo ships can no longer navigate due to the extremely low water. "Normally in Emmerich we have a river width of about 300 meters for the big ships - now it's just 150 meters," says Wolters.
Around 600 freight ships pass the gauge every day, meeting and sometimes overtaking and now having to drive particularly carefully. There is no talk of shipping being stopped, but heavy pushed convoys, some of which can transport up to 16,000 tons of cargo at once, cannot currently operate, says Wolters. Some of the cargo has to be diverted to trucks or trains, or distributed among several ships, making it even fuller.
Half-empty ships can be seen in front of the Emmerich port - such as the 135-meter-long and 17.10-meter-wide container ship "Victoria" from the Netherlands, which was waiting for entry there, with a loading area that was at most half full and without the usual stacks of containers. The ship can normally transport up to 6000 tons. Now it's a lot less charge. More weight and thus draft are obviously not possible for the way upstream, says Wolters.
At the same time, because of the low water in southern Germany, containers would have to be reloaded from ships to trucks and trains, says a spokeswoman for the logistics company Contargo, which works at the Emmerich container port, among other places. In Emmerich, the containers would then be repacked onto ships for the journey to the Netherlands, which would require a great deal of additional work.
In addition to professional shipping, passenger shipping is also suffering. "The Duisburg Harbor Festival next weekend will take place without us. We cannot dock," says Captain Rainer van Laak from Reeser Personenschifffahrt. Due to the low water level, the piers are sometimes so steep to the bank that they are difficult to walk on, especially for older passengers. In addition, numerous ferry connections had to be discontinued.
The Rhine has become narrow - with deep incisions on the banks and the "beach" where the river usually flows. A lot emerges from the river bed that was previously covered by water for years, says the skipper of the WSA ship "Emmerich", Rex Herentrey. In addition to bicycles, sunken trees and lost cargo hatches from freight ships, the crew discovered a broken safe during inspection trips near the Emmerich Bridge.
On the banks of the Rhine near Schenkenschanz in the district of Kleve, the wreck of the former wooden cargo ship "De Hoop" from the late 19th century reappeared, which can only be seen when the water level is very low. In 1895, a catastrophic explosion occurred while transhipping dynamite, killing 16 and destroying the ship. Now people are sitting on camping chairs next to the wreck and taking photos.
State of emergency on the Rhine - not much is expected to change in the next few days. "For that we would need heavy rainfall in the Rhine catchment area and the tributaries," says Wolters.
