Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar announced the shutdown of the Paks nuclear power plant for the first time in 44 years due to the excessively low water level in the Danube, Agence France-Presse reported, BTA reported.
"Due to the new drop in the water level of the Danube, one of the last two production units of the Paks nuclear power plant will be shut down at 1:30 in the morning", he wrote in Ex shortly before the planned shutdown.
"This will reduce the plant's production to just 240 megawatts", he added. The plant "will be completely shut down for the first time in 44 years".
Located about 100 kilometers south of Budapest, the Paks plant provides about 40% of the country's annual electricity production.
On Friday, the operator of the plant — whose four reactors, built with Soviet-era technology, are cooled by water pumped from the Danube — warned that falling river levels could force a complete shutdown of the plant by the middle of next week. However, the government has warned that this could happen as early as the weekend.
Due to a prolonged lack of rainfall and the extreme heat that has gripped Europe since spring, the waters of the Danube have reached historic lows in some places. And the situation could worsen with temperatures forecast to reach between 40 and 42 degrees in the coming days.