The level of the Danube River in its Bulgarian part reached the absolute minimum on Thursday, officials from the hydrometeorology centre there reported.

The waters reached a level of 189 centimetres near the town of Russe, which is the lowest since hydrologists started measuring river's level in 1940.

The level dropping caused the formation of mud-banks around the Belene, Vardim and Batin islands, which will at some point hamper the navigation of bigger ships.

It is expected that the river level drop with another five centimetres in the next few days. The same time last year the level of Danube near Bulgaria was more than eight metres. Specialists say this happens because of the insufficient precipitations in the end of the autumn, the winter and now in spring.

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