The Vajont Dam (or Vaiont Dam) is a disused dam, completed in 1959 in the valley of the Vajont river under Monte Toc, 100 km north of Venice, Italy. It was responsible for the deaths of approximately 2,000 people in a 1963 landslide.
One of the highest dams in the world, it was 262 metres (860 ft) high, 27 metres (89 ft) thick at the base and 3.4 metres (11 ft) at the top. Its 1963 over-topping was caused when the designers ignored the geological...
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The Vajont Dam (or Vaiont Dam) is a disused dam, completed in 1959 in the valley of the Vajont river under Monte Toc, 100 km north of Venice, Italy. It was responsible for the deaths of approximately 2,000 people in a 1963 landslide.
One of the highest dams in the world, it was 262 metres (860 ft) high, 27 metres (89 ft) thick at the base and 3.4 metres (11 ft) at the top. Its 1963 over-topping was caused when the designers ignored the geological instability of Monte Toc on the southern side of the basin. Warning signs and negative appraisals during the early stages of filling were disregarded, and the attempt to complete the filling led to a landslide which created a seiche wave that brought massive flooding and destruction to the Piave valley below, wiping out several villages completely.
On 12 February 2008, while launching the International Year of Planet Earth, UNESCO cited the Vajont Dam tragedy as one of the five worst man-made disasters, caused by "the failure of engineers and...
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