Hungary is racing against time to build a dam on the Danube, now largely dried up, in order to maintain cooling for the Paks nuclear power plant under current drought conditions, Prime Minister Péter Magyar said today. “We have started building a small dam that will permanently help raise the Danube’s water level,” Magyar told reporters in Paks, about 100 kilometres south of the capital Budapest.

Only two of the eight turbines at the country’s sole nuclear plant remain operational, because heat and drought are lowering water levels in the Danube, the Rhine and other important European rivers.

Romanian authorities announced today the shutdown of the second reactor at the Cernavodă nuclear plant due to the Danube’s low water level. The first unit was taken offline at the end of July because of a shortage of cooling water.

Nine days ago the Paks plant, which normally supplies at least one third of Hungary’s electricity, was on the verge of permanent closure. Continued operation of the last turbine depended on changes of only a few millimetres in the Danube’s water level. Before the dam is completed, two 80-metre barges, placed end to end and perpendicular to the river’s flow, will be deliberately sunk to create an initial blocking effect.

The dam, to be built perpendicular to the riverbed, will use about 185,000 cubic metres of rock. According to Magyar, Hungarian soldiers are working around the clock on the construction, which should be finished within the next four weeks. The project is expected to raise the water level upstream of Paks’s cooling system by 1.2 metres. The prime minister estimated the cost at 6 billion forints (about 19 million dollars).