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A joint production of Italian and French companies, it was titled Vajont—La diga del disonore ("Vajont—The Dam of Dishonour") in Italy, and La Folie des hommes (The Madness of Men) in France. It stars Michel Serrault and Daniel Auteuil. The tragedy was included in the 2008 documentary series Disasters of the Century.
- The dam was built during Italy’s postwar boom. The construction of the Vajont Dam was undertaken during the postwar boom in Italy, which is also known as the Italian economic miracle by historians.
- Warnings about the construction were ignored. Vajont Dam was built to create a reservoir from a mountain stream in order to generate hydroelectric power.
- The disaster started with a landslide. Towards the end of construction, a landslide behind the dam began to seem inevitable. However, the impact and size of the landslide were vastly underestimated.
- The ensuing wave destroyed entire villages. The enormous wave caused flash flooding in the Piave valley, below the dam, and destroyed the villages of Longarone, Pirago, Rivalta, Villanova and Faè.
- Banqiao Dam Failure. The Banqiao Dam failure in 1975 was the collapse of 62 dams in Henan, China, which was caused by Typhoon Nina. Occurring in August 1975, it is the third deadliest flood in history and resulted in the loss of lives in the range of 85,600 – 240,000.
- Bhopal Disaster. The Bhopal Gas Tragedy, also known as the Bhopal Disaster, occured in December 2nd-3d, 1985 in a pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.
- Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. The well-known Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred on April 26th, 1986. The power for the number four reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant dropped to almost zero, which in turn caused a nuclear chain reaction within the reactor.
- Pennsylvanian Johnstown Flood. The Great Flood of 1889, also known as the Johnstown flood, occurred following the failure of the South Fork Dam, upstream of Johnstone town, Pennsylvania.
- The Vajont Dam Represents A New Phase in Post-War Italy
- The Dam Was Doomed to Fail
- A Mega-Tsunami Engulfs The Valley
- Victims of The Disaster Receive Some Justice
The Vajont River Gorge is one of the deepest naturally occurring narrow canyons in the world. Since the 1920s and 1930s, many had suggested that a hydroelectric dam should be built in the area between the two mountain ridges. This dam would be a crowning achievement of civil infrastructure, with the convienient effect of supplying energy needs to a...
It became apparent almost immediately into its construction that there were major issues with the dam. In 1959, engineers discovered that the dam’s construction was instigating minor landslides and earth tremors across the valley. In mid-1962, the nearby municipalities of Erto and Casso reported earthquakes at a level 5 on the Mercalli Scale. This ...
Despite the risks, dam engineers came to believe that they could fill the reservoir up to 25 meters below its maximum level and still avoid a disaster. With careful studies and risk monitoring, they believed that they could control the issue. And so they began filling. That year, just months after the first landslide, SADE raised the dam’s water le...
Today, nearly 60 years later, Monte Toc still bears wide gashes from the landslide as a visceral reminder of the disaster that transpired there. The sheer magnitude of the Vajont Dam disaster stoked an uproar across the country. How could such an engineering marvel, supposedly built and maintained by the top scientists and geologists in the nation,...
- All That's Interesting
Aug 3, 2020 · Genoa readies new bridge two years after tragic collapse. Renzo Piano peers up at his creation - an elegant sweep of steel and concrete spanning more than a kilometre. "When you finish a job there ...
- 3 min
- Mark Lowen
Mar 22, 2023 · tourscotland/YouTube. May 1915 saw one of the worst rail disasters in British history. This tragedy killed more than 226 people, but a definitive list of victims was never established. The multi ...
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Dec 22, 2020 · Dec. 22, 2020. The 2018 collapse of a bridge in northwestern Italy that killed 43 people was a result of problems in the structure’s conception, design, construction and, more recently ...
