The water levels on the Rhine continue to rise. However, they are likely to sink again in the Middle Rhine before they reach the Lower Rhine.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf The water level near Kaub, which is important for shipping on the Rhine, is rising and has reached the one meter mark on Monday morning. That was 40 centimeters more than on Sunday morning and almost 70 centimeters more than the lowest level of 32 centimeters on Friday morning. According to a forecast by the Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration (WSV), the water level could rise to 143 centimeters by Tuesday morning.
Since the fairway depth at Kaub is currently more than 1.10 meters above the water level, some cargo ships could theoretically pass the bottleneck again almost fully loaded.
Heavy rainfall in southern Germany at the end of last week had a much smaller impact on the level of the important waterway than expected. Now the rain is coming, but from Tuesday the WSV is expecting the values in Kaub to fall again.
Kaub in Rhineland-Palatinate is an important interface for shipping on the Rhine, as the river is particularly flat at this point. At low tide, cargo ships can only be loaded much more easily, otherwise they sink too deep. The falling transport capacities affect the production of industrial companies on the Lower Rhine, which lack preliminary products and raw materials.
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As a result, the fuel company Shell had to reduce production at the site in the chemical park between Cologne and Bonn. The container transport company Contargo transports the steel boxes from Mannheim to the ports of Duisburg and Emmerich on the Lower Rhine by rail. “So far, this has only happened in isolated cases,” says a spokeswoman. “Now Contargo is planning to make this solution regular traffic.” She also gives the reason: “The low water will last for quite a while.”
Water level is not the same as water depth
The Duisburg container hinterland logistics company is talking about at least two to three weeks. But the railways are also plagued by enormous transport problems. Countless construction sites, high levels of sick leave and a lack of wagon capacity place narrow limits on switching to rail.
Further downstream, the higher water levels also reached North Rhine-Westphalia. The water level in Cologne was 94 centimeters on Monday morning, an increase of 14 centimeters compared to the previous day. In Düsseldorf, the level rose by six to 44 centimeters.
In Emmerich near the Dutch border, the higher water level will probably only arrive in the coming days, when the water levels in the south are already falling again. Levels here stagnated at around three centimeters over the weekend through Monday morning, after dipping to negative levels before the weekend.
A recovery in freight transport on the Rhine is therefore not to be expected for the time being, although cargo ships on sections of the river can now be loaded more heavily again in the meantime.
With material from dpa.
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