[Anchor]

While we are also suffering from scorching heat, this summer's heatwave in Europe is practically at the level of a climate disaster. Glaciers are melting and pouring down like waterfalls, and compounding droughts are even raising warnings of food shortages.

Paris Correspondent Kwon Yeongin reports.

[Reporter]

This is the Pasterze Glacier in Austria, the largest glacier in the eastern Alps.

As the murderous heatwave causes the glacier to melt, it has created a massive waterfall.

[Markus Lakunor / Austrian National Park Ranger (translated): For it to be 30 degrees Celsius here. This is by no means normal weather in this mountainous region. The glacier here is in a state where it has no choice but to melt even faster.]

Austria has been breaking record high temperatures day after day, with the capital Vienna reaching 41 degrees Celsius (106°F) and the eastern region hitting 41.2 degrees Celsius (106°F).

Slovakia also saw temperatures soar to a record high of 41.4 degrees Celsius (106°F), and Italy issued the highest heatwave alert for all 27 cities registered under its heatwave monitoring system, effective today (August 6), for the first time in history.

Droughts intertwined with the heatwave are also severe.

Water levels in the Danube River, which cuts across Europe, are breaking historic lows day after day.

Hungary, which has used Danube river water as cooling water for nuclear power plants, has suspended operations at three of the four units at the Paks Nuclear Power Plant—which supplies more than 50% of the country's electricity—and the remaining one unit is also facing imminent suspension.

With the power crisis forcing people to turn off lights at night unless they are essential lighting, the beautiful night view that was like a symbol of the capital Budapest has also disappeared.

The Krsko Nuclear Power Plant, which supplies electricity to Slovenia and Croatia, has also decided to lower its output as the flow rate of the Sava River, its cooling water source, has decreased.

[Zeljko Popic / Croatian Resident (translated): In the 55 years I've lived here, it's the first time the river level has dropped so much that old bridges down there have been exposed. But where did all the fish go?]

In Germany and France, river waters have dried up, reducing cargo traffic on major canals to less than a third of normal levels.

Damage to crops is also serious.

In the case of the United Kingdom, which declared that half of the country is in a state of rapidly developing flash drought, forecasts suggest that grain harvests will hit their lowest levels since statistics began in 1984.

The World Food Programme has warned that global food shortages are a concern through 2027 due to heatwaves and droughts.

(Video by Kim Si-nae | Video Editing by Lee Seung-yeol)