Fifty years ago: the Vaiont night

Spagna, Valerio (2012) Fifty years ago: the Vaiont night. Annals of geophysics, 55 (3). pp. 389-392. ISSN 2037-416X

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Abstract

A geologist at the beginning of his career in the early 1960’s was a teacher of mineralogy and geology at the Agordo “Follador” Mining Institute in the Dolomites area. It was 50 years ago now when he observed the building of the Vaiont dam, and here he tells us of the night of October 9, 1963, when he rushed to the Piave Valley together with the first-aid teams, to confront the remains of Longarone. Did the dam collapse? Everybody thinks so, but the moon was not shining enough to allow an understanding of what had happened. It was only the first faint light of dawn that revealed that the dam was still standing: it was only edged by the water, from the shaping of the tremendous wave that was raised by the Mount Toc landslide when it entered the basin at 100 km/h. The dam edge contributed to the projection of the wave onto the opposite slopes, where once the water mass was released from the narrow Vaiont canyon, it raised solidly into the air, grazing the Casso village and precipitated as a massive block on the Longarone area. Everybody looked upwards with hate and despair, at the residual water streamlets that were overflowing along the concrete wall of the dam. Over the white bare esplanade people appeared extremely small. Pitiful people, gathered around the bodies wrenched from the devastated houses, denuded and buried in the mud

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Environmental risk, Vaiont disaster, Landslide, Flood, First-aid teams
Subjects:	100 Filosofia e Psicologia > 170 Etica > 174 Etica delle attività (Classificare qui l'Etica economica, professionale; l'Etica del lavoro) > 174.936334 Gestione delle catastrofi – Aspetti etici 100 Filosofia e Psicologia > 170 Etica > 174 Etica delle attività (Classificare qui l'Etica economica, professionale; l'Etica del lavoro) > 174.936334 Gestione delle catastrofi – Aspetti etici 100 Filosofia e Psicologia > 170 Etica > 174 Etica delle attività (Classificare qui l'Etica economica, professionale; l'Etica del lavoro) > 174.936334 Gestione delle catastrofi – Aspetti etici 500 Scienze naturali e Matematica > 550 Scienze della Terra > 551 Geologia, Idrologia, Meteorologia 500 Scienze naturali e Matematica > 550 Scienze della Terra > 551 Geologia, Idrologia, Meteorologia > 551.4 Geomorfologia e idrosfera > 551.48 Idrologia (Classificare qui il bilancio idrologico, il ciclo idrologico, la Limnologia) (Classificare le opere d'insieme su Oceanografia e Idrologia in 551.46; classificare le risorse idriche, le opere interdisciplinari sull'acqua in 553.7) > 551.489 Piene
Depositing User:	Roberto Wiedman
Date Deposited:	12 Oct 2012 08:56
Last Modified:	12 Oct 2012 08:56
URI:	http://eprints.bice.rm.cnr.it/id/eprint/4193

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