Great Danube Flood of 2006, photos after the peaking - Budapest, Hungary

Location:

GPS coordinates: Latitude 47°29'35", Longitude 19°2'45" (N47 29.58 - E19 2.75) Map

The "Kossuth" museum and restaurant boat, including the "Vénhajó" Restaurant, the background of the photo is filled with the huge Royal Palace in the Buda Castle

The old "Kossuth" riverboat was originally a side wheel passenger steamer (steamboat), it was constructed in 1913 in the Ganz Danubius shipbuilding factory in Újpest. Now it is berthed in front of the Hotel InterContinental, close to the Pest-side end of the Széchenyi Chain Bridge. Initially it was named as "Ferencz Ferdinánd főherczeg" (after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria), then it was renamed to "Rigó" ("Thrush", the bird species) in 1919 probably due to the short-lived communist Hungarian Soviet Republic ("Tanácsköztársaság"), and to "Leányfalu" in 1930. It was rebuilt in Újpest in 1953 and received its new name: "Kossuth" (after Lajos Kossuth Hungarian politician in the 19th century). Withdrawn from traffic in 1978, renovated and since 1984 it is a stationary vessel in Budapest. The museum boat was operated by the Hungarian Technical and Transportation Museum ("Budapesti Közlekedési Múzeum") until 2005. The elegant "Vénhajó" (literally "Old boat") restaurant is situated on the boat, from here a marvelous panoramic view reveals to the Buda Castle.

The Vigadó Square boat station is under the water, and on the other side of the Danube it is the Royal Palace of the Buda Castle

The early-spring riverine flood of 2006 had the second highest peak water level in Budapest immediately after the icy flood of 1876. The latter in the 19th century was proved fatal for Pest downtown, where the the water level marks still can be seen on some buildings, for example on the wall of the Franciscan Church on the Ferenciek tere (square). In 4 April 2006 the Danube River reached the peak of 860 centimeters at Budapest, then the water level is started to decrease slowly.

Nevertheless, later both records were breaked by the Danube flood wave of the Central European big floods of 2013: in 9 June the river reached the absolute record 891 cm peak at Budapest, but fortunately the river defenses of the capital city (the embankments, levees, dikes, etc.) stood the siege of the water properly again. In 2013 the flooding river almost completely covered the boat station building at the Vigadó Square, the water level reached the top of the windows, so just the very top of the building was above the surface.