The flooding of 8-9 June made people of the nearby villages worried about my father. His camp was the only one by the river. It could well be that at the time of the high waters, his was the only habitation for many kilometres up and down the river. On the Romanian side the situation was much worse. It was flat land of cultivated fields and pastures. All that was underwater to the distant horizon – maybe over 30 km away.
On 11 June, just when the water showed first faint signs of subsiding, Emo with his wife Elli came in their boat to see what had happened with the camp and with my father. They were friends from the more distant village of Kovachitsa. They had thoughtfully brought anti-mosquito spirals – what with all the flooding, the mosquito pressure had become ferocious.
They also brought the reigning conspiracy theory. It was all because of the river-coach tragedy in Budapest, they said. A few words have to be said about that most tragic event.
On the late evening of 29 May, 2019, a group of 35 South Korean tourists were on board the river-coach ‘Mermaid’, sight-seeing along the river in Budapest. When they were passing under the Margaret Bridge, the vessel was hit by a long cruise ship – the ‘Viking Sigyn’ – sailing under Norwegian flag. The collision happened just after 21:00 local time and in heavy rain (it was also raining heavily at Km 727). The coach overturned and sank within seconds. Seven people were rescued and some of the dead found, but the rest were gone, or probably trapped inside the river-coach. The tragedy was widely covered1.
What could be the connection between that accident and the river rising so dramatically in its lower part – where the waters are shared between Romania and Bulgaria? The villagers were not satisfied with the fact that due to heavy rains the river had been much swollen in the upper reaches before the accident happened. In addition, the big rivers of Tysa in Hungary and Romania, the Drava, Sava, and Velika Morava in Serbia and Croatia, were carrying huge volumes of water into the Danube. Still, no official announcements were made, beyond simply reporting high waters. This set minds working.
In sum, as it was heatedly discussed in the two villages round the camp, it was about the bodies of the drowned. The river had swept them away, and besides, the unlucky river coach could not be raised from the bottom. To find the bodies and raise the boat, the level of the river had to be lowered. For the purpose, the Iron Gates reservoirs let out more water than usual. Hence the flooding of the banks downriver.
That was the theory: we had been sacrificed in the name of the salvaging operation in Budapest. It has to be said that the conclusion was made with bitterness, but, at the same time, people showed commiseration for the victims of the tragedy.
Meanwhile, a contingent of South Korean divers arrived in Budapest. Between them and the local authorities, the boat was raised to the surface on 11 June, and the rest of the bodies recovered. Some of the bodies were found nearly a hundred kilometres below the point of collision.
Immediately after the boat was raised, the water began to fall – as indeed my father was greatly relieved to see. (By that time, he was able of registering water subsiding by a hair-breadth). It was connected, as Emo explained, with the level of the Iron Gates Reservoirs2, some 200 km upriver from the camp. The proof for that was that as soon as the boat was raised and all bodies had been found, the level of the water in the Iron Gates Dams began to rise. Correspondingly, the level below the dams went down. Previous to that, the level of the Reservoir had fallen by 5 m – from the normal 25 m down to about 19 m. As said above, the lowering of the level above the dams was to facilitate the salvaging operation. Once the operation was over, the flow of water leaving the dams was reduced. The water-level below Iron Gates began to subside and, in result, life at Km 727 – as all life downriver from Km 932 – regained its pre-flood form.
Whatever the case, the flooding of the bank had its impact on the camp, as we have mentioned in the previous post. What other changes occurred?
After his week in the tiny tent on the slope, my father moved back to the big tent on 17 June. The floor panels were set as well as some of the shelves. Importantly, the cooking range was in action again. The solar panels were moved to the sliver of dry bank in front of the tent. The emergency period was over.
With the subsiding of the water, my father’s path to the bait-site was in use again. While it was underwater, the morfa bushes had managed to cover it. Indeed, that all-present bush grew with phenomenal rapidity.
The picture shows what the jackals see when they look from the bait-site.
The jackal family’s core territory began to slowly acquire its previous size. The distance between bait-site and camp returned to normal after the removal of the small tent and the carrying of all the luggage back under the big roof. With these improvements, the number of jackal visits shot up to their previous rate of 12-14 visits a night.
The old grass-snake Delongi moved back to the roots of the poplar-tree by the tent. During the flood she had left that home and sought refuge on the roof of the tent. It was then my father realized the big grass-snake was afraid of the water. She could not come down! It appeared she could not swim. Then he leaned a plank against the roof of the tent for her to come down. Great hesitation followed, lasting until after dark. At long last the big snake slid down the plank and hid into one of the numerous burrows which dotted the bluff-face. When the floor of the tent was dry again, she came back as the rats had done so a while before. Life was back to normal.
Apart from these old inhabitants, new ones appeared. They were a couple of swallows (Barn swallow, Hirundo rustica), who had been flying inside and out already at the time of the flood. Now they set to making a nest under the roof.
By the beginning of July, three chicks had hatched. New life under the roof was beginning.
(photo: 7a The parents with their chicks; 7b Growing up)
Round about that time, the first tomatoes ripened in my father’s vegetable patch. Ivo brought fresh eggs from the village. Summer was beginning in earnest.
My father’s diary when the flooding drama was over, ends with the words: ‘The river is once again right in front of me as I am sitting at the table. The swallows are quarrelling over the upbringing of the chicks.’
Reducing or increasing the flow of water from the Iron Gate two reservoirs determines the level of the Lower Danube waters. It can be mentioned here that for the Ancient Romans the Danube was two rivers: Danubium above the Iron Gates Gorge, and Istrum – below it.
