After day-long talks in Sombor, Serbia on Wednesday, water management officials from Croatia, Hungary and Serbia agreed that four Hungarian icebreakers would be sent to Croatia and Serbia to ensure navigation along the Danube river.
Under the signed agreement, two icebreakers would be stationed at Vukovar and two at Apatin, Zoran Djurokovic, director of the Osijek branch of the Croatian national water management company Hrvatske Vode, told the press. He said that the agreement would be presented to the national authorities of the three countries for approval and that the procedure was expected to be completed in a few days. He stressed that all the parties would remain in close contact because the situation was serious.
Owing to very low temperatures, the Danube is largely frozen and if the present weather persists it is expected to become totally frozen in the next ten days, Djurokovic said.
Navigation along the Danube was banned on Wednesday morning due to ice created by extremely low temperatures.
