Gianpaolo Arena, Marina Caneve, Céline Clanet, François Deladerriere, Petra Stavast, Jan Stradtmann, CALAMITA/À. An investigation into the Vajont catastrophe, 2024

On the night of October 9, 1963, 270 million cubic meters of rock, earth and debris broke away from the slopes of Mount Toc to which they had clung since prehistoric times. A giant landslide, more than two kilometers long and one of the most destructive in human history, plunged into the lake formed by the Vajont River barrage. The water surpassed the safe limit of the reservoir, sweeping away the surrounding towns and villages: a huge wave of 60 million cubic meters of water and mud overtopped the dam and spilled onto the valley floor. According to estimates in expert reports filed in court, the energy of the shock wave produced by the explosion and the abnormal mass of water conveyed into the Piave Valley was equivalent to that of two atomic bombs of the type dropped on Hiroshima, or about 40 kilotons of TNT. The dam, completed in 1959 and at the time the highest in the world, suffered no major damage. The Piave Valley was transformed into a dismal moonscape, an immense mass of mud and debris. Nothing and no one could resist the fury of the catastrophe. The power of the explosion and the flood destroyed numerous villages, killing about two thousand people.