(1) In the 1930s, SADE designed a dam in the Vajont gorge to generate hydropower, which required flooding the valley and displacing the local environment. (2) Construction of the dam began in the 1950s, and by 1963 engineers had started filling the reservoir, but a massive landslide caused a wave that overtopped the dam. (3) On October 9, 1963, over 260 million cubic meters of rock broke off the mountainside and crashed into the reservoir, sending a 200-meter wave that destroyed the villages of Longarone and others, killing over 2,000 people in the worst civil disaster of 20th century Italy.

1. VAJONT
9th October 1963
h 22:39
Comenius project
«Let’s know,let’s love,let’s protect our
environment»

2. The purpose
In the 1930s, the
SADE, the Adriatic
Society of Electricity,
designed a dam to
create a reservoir in
the Vajont gorge to
get hydropower.

3. The dam’s project
The construction involved the loss of a unique
natural environment.

4. The beginning: the building of the
dam.
This is the building of
the dam:
About 500 workers
worked in the dam
and some of them
died.

5. The reservoir
Then, the society
engineers started to
fill the reservoir with
water to get
hydropower. But
something went
wrong...

6. The tragedy
On the night of 9th October
1963 from the slopes of the
“Toc” mountain a mass of
rock of 260 milions of cubic
meters broke off and slipped
into the dam causing a wave
of more than 200 meters that
struck the village of
Longarone and the
surroundings. It caused over
2000 deaths (without
counting the workers).

7. The villages: before and after
The village of Pirago
before the disaster...
...and after it.

8. The first aid
Firefighters, policemen, and volunteers of the
surroundings, following the groans, found
some survivors under the rubble.

9. Survivors’ evacuation
An USA helicopter
carried the survivors
to their relatives.

10. The army’s intervention
The army found the
bodies also in places
far away from the
disaster.

11. The cemetery of Fortogna
In this place the dead were buried

12. The reconstruction
This is the church of
Longarone, before the
disaster...
...and the new church
built on the 9th October 1977

13. The central square of
Longarone, before the
disaster.
And in the 80s, after the
reconstruction.

14. The signs of the disaster
This disaster tells us that men, sometimes, for
pure economic interest ignore the respect for
others and for the environment.

15. By
Elettra Bastanzetti
Michelle De Toffoli