The rusting hull of a century-old steam tug has emerged almost completely from the shrinking waters of Serbia’s Sava River near Sremska Mitrovica, about 45 miles north-west of Belgrade. Extreme heat and prolonged drought across Central and Southeastern Europe have pushed water levels to historic lows, revealing a vessel known locally as "Sava’s Titanic." Built in 1913 at a shipyard in Budapest, Hungary, during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the 177-foot ship was originally named the Vag. After the First World War and the collapse of the empire, the vessel was transferred in 1921 to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and renamed the Slovenac. The steam tug survived decades of service and two world wars before sinking in late April 1945, near the end of the Second World War. While carrying wounded fighters near the Serbian village of Drenovac, the vessel hit a German magnetic river mine and sank.
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