Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar announced Sunday that the country's only nuclear power plant was due to be shut down after record-low water levels in the Danube river triggered its first outage in some 44 years.

The move marks the latest stage in an energy crisis triggered by prolonged drought and extreme heat across Europe.

The nuclear plant in Paks, south of Budapest – normally providing around a third of the central European country's electricity needs – is cooled by water pumped from the Danube river, which has dropped to record low levels due to lack of rain and successive heat waves since May.

"Due to the further drop in the Danube's water level, one of the last two generating units at the Paks Nuclear Power Plant will be shut down at 1:30 a.m.," Magyar posted on X.

"As a result, the plant's output will fall to just 240 megawatts, and tomorrow it will be completely shut down for the first time in 44 years," he added.

On Friday, the plant's operator said that declining water levels could force Paks to be taken completely offline around the middle of next week.

The country's national weather service, HungaroMet, forecast highs of over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) over the coming days.

A 42 degrees Celsius peak predicted for Thursday would match the national temperature record set earlier this summer.