On September 9, 1963 the side of the mountain above Vajont slid down
into the 10km lake above the town of Longarone. The resulting
expulsion of water went up 300-400m into the air and killed villagers
living above the dam. Then the water jumped completely over the dam,
damaging very little of it and. Rashes into the gorge hundreds of feet
below.
The air force equalled that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb and 2000
people in Longarone were instantly killed. Then the waters came with
such force that it washed away the town and sent steel bridges over
1km upriver!
The people. Oils have all been saved but there were several human
errors in this tragedy. I highly recommend searching Vajont on
Wikipedia and reading about it.
Mario was a little baby living just above the tragedy at that time, so
he and his family were saved. But many died.
If you look at the depth of the dam gorge in the first and second
photos you will see something ... strange. The actual depth visible
below the dam is the same as above. However the depth currently above
is much shallower. Why is this? This is due to the huge amount of rock
and mud and land that just suddenly sheared off the mountain. It is a
stunning tragedy.
And then we found a geocache!
No comments:
Post a Comment