Vajont Dam, Italy

Vajont Dam - darkometer rating : 6 - This is a somewhat more obscure dark site, in northern Italy , but nonetheless the site of a major tragedy – partly natural, partly man- made – when in 1963 a landslide, which could have been foreseen, displaced the water in a reservoir which then washed over the high concrete dam supposed to hold it in and carried on down the valley in a huge wave washing away the town of Longarone and killing ca. 2000. The dam, which – ironically – survived the disaster virtually intact, can be visited today, including guided tours of the crest. There is also a small visitor centre. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: The story of the Vajont disaster is roughly this: in the late 1950s a new dam was built in a deep gorge in the northern Italian mountains (on the southern edges of the Dolomites) for hydroelectric power generation. In fact, at 262 metres (860 feet) tall, it was at the time of completion the highest such structure in the world ... and still ranks among the top-five – in short: it was a highly ambitious prestige project. However, the design was flawed – not that of the dam itself, which was a brilliant technological feat. But: the mountainside on one bank of the reservoir, Monte Toc, was unstable. This could have been considered in the planning but wasn't – or at least not sufficiently. Several smaller landslides gave ample warning of the looming catastrophe. These warnings were picked up and reported, but the authorities decided to ignore them and rather suppressed the reporting. On the night of 9 October 1963, disaster hit. Big time.