Severe drought has caused water levels of the river Elbe to drop, exposing centuries-old “hunger stones”.

One stone now visible in Decin, where the Elbe flows from the Czech Republic into Germany, is carved with a warning from 1616 that reads: “If you see me, weep.”

The stones, embedded into the banks to mark water levels during famines, have been exposed as drought continues to afflict Europe.

Other stones, which were common in German settlements from the 16th to the 19th centuries, were inscribed with similarly macabre warnings of falling water levels. Water levels in the Rhine reached record lows on Monday.

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Germany’s Waterways and Shipping Administration (WSV) measured just 12.5 inches of water at a key reference point in Kaub, a bottleneck for shipping on the river, which services Germany’s industrial heartlands.

Read more: The Telegraph