VAJONT 9th October 1963

h 22:39

Comenius project«Let’s know,let’s love,let’s protect our

environment»

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.

The dam’s project

The construction involved the loss of a unique natural environment.

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.

The reservoir

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

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).

The villages: before and after

The village of Piragobefore the disaster...

...and after it.

The first aid Firefighters, policemen, and volunteers of the

surroundings, following the groans, found some survivors under the rubble.

Survivors’ evacuation

An USA helicopter

carried the survivors

to their relatives.

The army’s intervention

The army found the bodies also in places far away from the disaster.

The cemetery of Fortogna

In this place the dead were buried

The reconstruction This is the church of

Longarone, before the

disaster...

...and the new church

built on the 9th October 1977

The central square of Longarone, before the

disaster.

And in the 80s, after thereconstruction.

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.

By

Elettra Bastanzetti

Michelle De Toffoli