'God, Don't Abandon Us': Historic Drought Grips Europe

A shepherd draws water from a well alongside Romania's dried-out Lake Amara on July 27. Romania is one of several countries in Europe currently in the grip of a severe drought.

The bed of Lake Amara in southeastern Romania on July 27. Over 200 cities and villages in Romania have restricted water consumption in an effort to get through the summer.

A woman kneels alongside a small crowd that gathered near Draganesti-Vlasca, in southern Romania, to pray for rain on July 24.

 

Priests stand on dried farmland during the July 24 religious service near Draganesti-Vlasca in which locals and religious leaders prayed for rain. 

An 81-year-old woman who attended the ceremony told Reuters she had never seen a drought as severe as the one currently affecting Romania.

"We have children. We have cattle," she said. "We make an effort to plant tomatoes in the garden, then they dry out, and we have nothing to eat. God, give us rain. Don't abandon us."

A woman kneels during a religious service held to pray for rain in Romania's Teleorman County on July 24. In the foreground are the priests' cassocks.

Locals attempt to extinguish a forest fire near Kecskemet, Hungary, on July 14. Hungary has also been hit hard by the ongoing drought. 

A photo showing a small patch of water remaining in the Halda fishing lake in northern Hungary on July 20.

A street thermometer displays a temperature of 43 degrees Celsius in Nagykanizsa, Hungary, on July 23. Farmers across Central Europe have reported drought damage affecting some 550,000 hectares of land, the country's Agriculture Ministry said this month.

Photos from northern Italy, where water is being rationed, show dramatic results of the drought. This June 15 photo shows a barge that was sunk by an American bomb during World War II on Italy's Po River. The vessel reemerged from its watery grave as a result of extremely low water levels. 

Tractors equipped with pumps pull water from the Po into an irrigation channel on June 22. The Po is Italy's longest river and supplies water to some of Italy's most iconic food-producing regions. 

Boats stranded in an overgrown waterway in Torricella, northern Italy, on July 14. 

The stony bed of the Sangone River in Turin, Italy, as seen on June 19. In some northern Italian cities, extraordinary water-saving measures have been implemented, such as a ban on hairdressers shampooing customers' hair twice.

Boats stranded by the receding water of Brenets Lake, a waterway between France and Switzerland, on July 18. According to Reuters, a combination of factors has contributed to the lake's condition, including geological faults that have drained some of the water, as well as a lack of rain and the summer heat wave. 

In central Portugal on July 13, this previously submerged village was revealed by low water levels on the Cabril Dam reservoir.