October 9, 1963, 22:39  – October 9, 2013

In memory of the 2000 inhabitants of Longarone and nearby towns who lost their lives in the Vajont disaster.

Longarone

Earth fills the space where a lake was supposed to be

The M-shaped scar on the mountainside where the landslide occurred

Along the roadside above the dam there’s a fence with multicolored, cheerful-looking, little banners fastened to it. Each banner bears the name and age of a child. These were the children under 15 years old who perished in the disaster. The white banners are for children who were never born. There are 487 banners. Nearly one quarter of all those who lost their lives on that terrible night.

little banners in remembrance of the children who perished

The underlined words read, “Not the result of negligence, but of a crime.”

You can also view the entire documentary that was part of the Seconds from Disaster series. It recounts the series of engineering errors and oversights that led to the disaster, as well as the sequence of events on that fateful night in October 1963.