Longarone as seen from the Vajont Dam...
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Longarone as seen from the Vajont Dam...

by Mirko Baruffini, IST-Istituto Scienze della Terra

Longarone, Italy. The Vajont Dam is a disused dam, completed in 1959 in the valley of the Vajont river under Monte Toc, 100 km north of Venice, Italy. A 1963 landslide caused the overtopping of the dam and around 2,000 deaths.One of the tallest dams in the world, it is 262 metres high. Its 1963 over-topping was caused when the designers ignored the geological instability of Monte Toc on the southern side of the basin.