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It was a generally-expressed opinion that something must have happened farther down the river to relieve the pent-up waters. Very shortly official news arrived, and spread like wildfire, that the Danube had made a way for itself right across the island of Csepel into the Soroksár arm of the river. Csepel is an island some thirty miles long, situated a short distance below Pest.
The case stands thus: the river, left to its own devices, separates below Pest into two branches, called respectively the Soroksár and the Promontar; these branches continue their course independently of each other for a distance of about fifty-seven kilometres, forming the great island of Csepel, which has an average width of about five kilometres.
The engineering works for the regulation of the Danube had, as I said before, closed this Soroksár branch, and the river, in reasserting its right of way to the sea, caused a terrible calamity to the villages on the Csepel Island, but thereby Hungary's capital was saved.
Some very important works had just been completed, and these were all swept away two days after the Danube had burst over the Csepel Island at Pest. It is a matter of interest to note the travelling rate of the flood, which from being ice-clogged was less rapid than one would suppose. Baja is 120 miles below Pest.
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