Drought in Europe reveals treasures from World War II
Weeks of severe drought across Europe have seen water in rivers and lakes drop to levels few remember, exposing underwater treasures and some unwanted dangers.
In Spain, which has suffered its worst drought in decades, archaeologists have been delighted with the appearance of a prehistoric stone circle called the "Spanish Stonehenge" that is usually flooded by a dam.
Officially known as the Dolmen of Guadalberl, the stone circle is now completely exposed in a corner of the Valdecanas Reservoir in the central province of Cáceres, where authorities say the water level has fallen to 28 percent of the reservoir's capacity.
The stone circle was discovered by German archaeologist Hugo Obermayer in 1926, but the area was submerged in 1963 in a rural development project under Francisco Franco.
Since then, it has only been seen in full four times.
'Hunger stones' in Germany
Memories of past droughts in Germany are rekindled with the re-emergence of the so-called 'hunger stones' along the Rhine.
Several of these stones have appeared along the banks of Germany's largest river in the past few weeks.
Some of these stones bear dates and initials of some people's names, and some view their reappearance as a warning and reminder of the hardships people faced during previous droughts.
The dates seen on stones in Worms, south of Frankfurt, Rheindorf and near Leverkusen include 1947, 1959, 2003 and 2018.
Ship hulls from World War II
The Danube, one of Europe's other great rivers, has fallen to one of its lowest levels in nearly a century as a result of a drought, revealing the hulls of more than 20 Nazi-era warships that sank during World War II near a harbor Serbian Prahovo.
Italy declared a state of emergency in the areas around the Po River, and in late July a World War II bomb weighing 450 kilograms was discovered submerged in the low waters of the country's longest river.
About 3,000 people living near the northern village of Borgo Virgilio, near the city of Mantua, were evacuated, while military experts defused the bomb, which was made by the United States, and carried out a controlled detonation.
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