Shrinking water levels threaten to divide the Rhine River into two

"In principle, the Rhine is then no longer navigable along its entire length and thus split in two," he added.

Schwanen said shipping would continue between the ports of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp, the northern part of the German Rhine and the west German canal network, and farther south there would be traffic on tributaries including the Main, Moselle and Neckar rivers and the Main-Danube Canal.

This weekend, Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland relaxed trucking curbs to ease transport bottlenecks caused by low water levels on rivers including the Rhine.

(Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Alison Williams)