The entrance gate to the Vajont Dam. The memorial tablets commemorate the workers who died in the tragedy.
All Italians of a certain age remember the Vajont disaster:in the night of October, 9, 1963 a giant wave raised by a landslide into a brand new hydroelectric reservoir in the Italian Alps jumped over the dam that was supposed to contain it. The immense wave rushed out of a mountain gorge and crushed nine villages in less than seven minutes, Longarone, Pirago, Villanova, Rivalta, Fae, Codissago, Castellavazzo, Erto e Casso, killing near 2,000 people. At the time, it was held to be a natural disaster. a part of the slope of Mt. Toc collapsed. Within 30 to 40 seconds estimated 240 – 270 million cubic meters of material plunged into the reservoir, filling completely the 400m deep gorge behind the dam. The wave generated by the impact of the landslide travelled 140m up on the opposite shore, reaching some buildings of the village of Erto. At that time, the reservoir contained 115 million cubic meters of water. The landslide pushed part of the water out of the lake, producing a wave with a maximal height of 230-240m. A 100 to 150m high wave overleaped the dam into the gorge of the Vajont, in direction of the larger and densely inhabited Piave valley. After all, the spectacular new dam, the tallest of its kind in the world and a marvel of Italian engineering genius, had held. The few voices calling for an investigation into possible human influence in the catastrophe were denounced as jackals. But due to the persistence of those few voices an investigation was held, and finally a trial convened. The trial determined that the conglomerate which carried out the dam project had known that a landslide into the reservoir was inevitable, that they kept that knowledge secret from the general public and specifically from the most likely victims, and that they even maintained the water level in the reservoir at such a dangerously high level - in the name of profit, of course - that a catastrophic wave leaping over the dam in the event of a landslide was a certainty.
Size: 3585px × 2354px
Location: Vajont Dam, Italy
Photo credit: © Ferdinando Piezzi / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 09\10\1963, casso, dam, disaster, erto, italian, itialian, longarone, vajont
