A distanza di 60 anni dal disastro del Vajont, ecco il racconto di cosa è avvenuto il 9 ottobre 1963, un evento che ha provocato quasi 2.000 morti. Quel giorno è il centro di una storia. C'è un prima, come si è arrivati a quell'evento, le avvisaglie del pericolo, e un dopo, cosa ha comportato per la popolazione di quel territorio devastato. Un'indelebile ferita nell'anima e un futuro difficilissimo da affrontare.
Regia: Pasquale D'Aiello
#Crime #TrueCrime #Delitti #Misteri #Documentari #Killer #SerialKiller #ColdCase #Cronaca #CronacaNera #DivinumCrime #Vajont #Disastro #Tzunami #Strage #Mistero #Storia #Documentario
Regia: Pasquale D'Aiello
#Crime #TrueCrime #Delitti #Misteri #Documentari #Killer #SerialKiller #ColdCase #Cronaca #CronacaNera #DivinumCrime #Vajont #Disastro #Tzunami #Strage #Mistero #Storia #Documentario
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00:07A huge mass of 50 million cubic meters of material, a whole mountain on the slope
00:13The left bank of the artificial lake is collapsing. It's unclear whether the collapse will be slow.
00:20or if it will hit with a terrible crash. In the latter case, it is impossible to predict
00:26the consequences. It may be that the famous dam, so technically vaunted and rightly so,
00:32resist. If the opposite were to happen and the lake were full, it would be a huge
00:38disaster for the same town of Longarone nestled at the bottom of the valley, but they will arise anyway
00:44other problems of a difficult and worrying nature.
01:04Thank you all.
01:38I remember three nights before October 9th, I was in bed. Then at a certain point I had
01:46I needed to get up and go to the bathroom and passing by the room where my dad and I were
01:53Mom, I heard them arguing. And I heard my mom say, well, to that
02:00At that point, the time had come to send the children away. And at that moment, I stopped,
02:06terrified, because I said to myself, why does my mom want to send us away from home?
02:11My dad replied, look, the dam should come down, die here, die in Belluno wherever you want
02:17Sending the children is the same thing. It's better if we die together.
02:22That evening my parents had gone out. I had stayed at home with my brother, more
02:30He was eight years old and I took him to bed. Then I went to bed and dozed off.
02:38and after a little while, well, I was woken up by a big bang and I felt like I was
02:50inside a large landslide.
02:54The day after October 9th there was a constant coming and going of people shouting because they had remained
03:03on the left of the lake, people who were no longer found swept away, the houses complete, a disaster
03:14uncommon, which is difficult to describe. It is also difficult to measure because it does not exist.
03:23a unit of measurement of the pain a person has inside himself when he is swept away
03:32his whole family.
03:41In Italy, during the economic boom and industrial development, the number of people involved is constantly increasing.
03:47energy demand. In 1960, in Friuli Venezia Giulia, the construction of a large
03:54the imposing Vaillant dam is defined as a public utility work. It is designed
04:01built by the private company Sade, an Adriatic electricity company, founded in 1905.
04:11The hydroelectric project envisaged the creation of a network of basins involving the rivers
04:16of water in the area. Among these is the Vaillant stream, a tributary of the Piave river, in
04:23which flows into the river at Lungarone, in the province of Belluno. The Vaillant, over the course of the millennia,
04:29dug a deep gorge that takes its name. With the construction of the dam,
04:34its waters will form a large artificial basin.
04:43The dam is overlooked by Mount Toc, almost 2000 metres high, in the Belluno Prealps,
04:50located on the border between Friuli Venezia Giulia and Veneto. As the local population well knows,
04:57Toc is a fragile mountain. Its name, according to some, derives from the word
05:03Patoc, which in the Friulian dialect means rotten.
05:12The first studies for the exploitation of the waters were drawn up by engineer Carlo Semenza
05:18and date back to 1926. But it was only in 1940 that Sade decided to begin the ambitious
05:29project. On June 22nd, it requests authorization to use the flow of the Piave, its tributaries
05:38Boite, Vaillante, and other smaller plants for electricity generation. The plan includes the construction
05:46of a reservoir or artificial basin with a capacity of 50 million cubic meters of water,
05:53created through the construction of a dam.
06:03In October 1943, in one of the most dramatic moments in Italian history, the project
06:10obtains authorization from the Superior Council of Public Works.
06:18After the end of the Second World War, in 1948, the Ministry of Public Works granted
06:25the concession for the works on the Grande Vaillant to Sade.
06:36Erto and Casso are two small villages that would have found themselves with the construction of the dam
06:43near the shore of the artificial lake. To realize his project, over the years
06:4850, Sade acquires some lands from their inhabitants.
06:54The first expropriation was much lower, the dam had to be smaller, not so
07:01high, 285 meters. Then they saw how people reacted and so they raised it another
07:14quota. It wasn't a union of the population, emigration was already in place, emigration
07:22people who had left here for economic reasons and who had properties here
07:30that they no longer used them. They were expropriated and took money from Sade. And then
07:36They made the second expropriation and then even the last one. They made three expropriations to get there.
07:44to where they wanted, at the greatest height of the current dam.
07:53Construction work on the dam began in 1957 and was completed in 1960.
08:03It is a double-arched structure, more than 260 meters high, with a length
08:09190 meters long, built with 360,000 cubic meters of concrete. Its maximum load capacity
08:17of water is 168 million cubic meters. At that time it was the tallest dam in the world,
08:25a pride of Italian engineering. It is a technically advanced work, but it is placed in a
08:32very fragile and unstable geological context. And in this respect, signs of danger and
08:41There was no shortage of alarms in those years. In 1959 a huge landslide seriously damaged another
08:50dam nearby. In October 1960, a year before the inauguration of the dam
08:57Vaillant, on the side of Mount Toc, a large M-shaped fracture appears. Then, on the 4th
09:06November, approximately 700,000 cubic meters of earth and rock slide into the Vaillant basin, creating
09:13A 10-meter-high wave. The incident is causing concern, but fears and appeals
09:21of the local population are not heard. Regarding whether or not they heard the noises coming from
09:30from Monte Toc, I must say that we have experienced a different story in the construction of the dam
09:39from that of the Erto Cassani. We in Longarone did not know much about the vicissitudes on the
09:48construction of the dam. Therefore, even the noises that could be heard up there, the vibrations
09:55that we felt, we were not aware of those episodes. I only remember one thing,
10:02that when there was a collapse in 1960 of a piece of Toc, we warned this little earthquake
10:16and we said it was an earthquake. Instead it was the first element that warned that the mountain
10:23was about to slowly fall. In those years of alarms and fears, not even
10:30the appeals launched by those who were contemptuously called the Cassandra of Vaillant.
10:36We were therefore right when, gathering the concerns of the population, we denounced
10:42the existence of a certain danger constituted by the formation of the lake. And the danger becomes
10:49increasingly looming. At the site of the landslide, the ground continues to give way, an impressive sound can be heard
10:56the sound of earth and rocks continuing to fall. And the large cracks in the ground, which embrace
11:03an area of entire kilometers, certainly cannot make you feel at ease.
11:10This is what Tina Merlin wrote on the pages of L'Unità, on 8 November 1960, almost three years before the
11:17disaster. She's a young journalist. She was born in a small village in the province of Belluno, and grew up
11:24among those mountains. As a child, she worked as a farm laborer. During the Second World War
11:30Mondiale, still very young, joins the Resistance, becoming a partisan courier.
11:37He wrote short stories, then began working as a journalist. In 1951, he became a correspondent.
11:45dell'Unità, the newspaper of the Italian Communist Party. In his articles he deals with the
11:52trade union battles, the condition of women, social problems and the transformation that
11:59is suffering its land. In particular, in the process of building the dam, Tina
12:06He sees many shadows. He begins to collect data, news, and testimonies.
12:16In May 1959 an article signed by Tina Merlin appeared on the pages of L'Unità,
12:24in which the responsibilities of Sade were courageously denounced and the dangers to which they were exposed
12:31The construction of the Vaillant dam would have exposed the residents of the area. The journalist
12:38she is even reported for spreading false and tendentious news aimed at disturbing
12:44public order. A serious charge. She's going to trial. It's a tough experience for her, but everything
12:53It will end with a solution. Tina does not give up and, with obstinacy, continues on her way.
13:02street. But the institutions continue to ignore his appeals. His words will prove
13:10tragically prophetic. Meanwhile, the mountain's movements continue to raise alarm.
13:19In 1961, a small landslide fell from Mount Toc into the basin. I saw it.
13:30with my own eyes, I saw the water rise and carry away the ruins down to the valley floor.
13:46In the same year, Sade built an overpass tunnel which, in the event of a landslide, would have
13:53guaranteed the flow of water from the lake and also maintained the functionality of the system.
14:00And again in 1961, at the request of engineer Carlo Semenz, a hydraulic model was prepared
14:08to simulate the effects on the dam-basin complex in the event of a further landslide on Mount
14:15Toc. The Sade, meanwhile, continues to proceed with the expansion and expansion of the basin, in a hurry to
14:23reach a final approval. The moment in which it will be liquidated by the State
14:28the third and final installment. In December 1962, following the law of the fourth Fanfani government,
14:37which establishes the nationalization of the Italian electricity industry, Enel is born. The dam
14:42Vaillant is now state-owned. Towards the end of the summer of 1963, the inhabitants
14:51of the area report, for the umpteenth time, to hear strange and worrying noises coming from
14:57from the mountains. But their reports are once again ignored. And even the heavy rains
15:04of those months raise alarms.
15:06And it was heard in the village that they were doing surveys on Mount Toc and they couldn't do it anymore.
15:15to remove the rods because the mountain was moving, the hole was not staying vertical, it was moving
15:24and the vehicle set up to carry out the surveys was unable to remove the rods. Yes, the warning signs
15:32There was a landslide moving. To test the system, the decision was made to fill
15:41the dam basin is over 700 meters above sea level. A choice
15:47very risky, exceeding the maximum safety limit indicated by the technicians. The landslide
15:54of Mount Toc continues and with the rises and falls of the lake level accelerates
16:00more and more.
16:01At the time I had a working relationship with the company that was building the dam, I had
16:11a butcher's shop and I supplied the canteens for the workers who worked there. One afternoon while I was
16:18delivering the meat to the cook in the hut that was on the slope of the lake, from Mount Toc which
16:26it was in front of us, 50 meters, yet another slice of mountain fell, not a big one but falling
16:36had raised a wave, a strange wave, not horizontal but vertical like a dome
16:44who started crossing the lake heading towards us. The cook and I ran away
16:52on the street, the wave crossed the lake and dissolved on the opposite bank but not
17:00nothing happened, the fear was enormous but what alarmed me most was that a
17:07A couple of days later I go back up to do the usual supplies and I can't find the cook anymore.
17:14She was gone, I knew she was scared and so she left because she always told me
17:20I don't want to die here.
17:26Thus we arrive at the eve of the disaster. On October 8th, the municipality of Erto and Casso
17:34an order to evacuate the Monte Toc area and establishes the prohibition of access to
17:40banks of the basin.
17:45At midday on October 9th, some workers noticed the movement of the mountain. Another
17:53Between 3 and 4 pm, a worker sees trees falling and their roots lifting large clods of earth
18:00of land.
18:04I found a certain Corona Guerino who is now dead and a certain De Marta Giuseppe who were
18:15hiding some cracks in the road here in the Pausa plain. I told him what you were
18:22doing? And he says we have orders to do so. No, I told him these cannot be done.
18:29to hide because it goes against the warning of what can happen here.
18:39October 9, 1963, for the community of Erto and Casso, was a day like any other,
18:50He was minding his own business, his own work. In the morning I went to work in the fields,
19:00then in the afternoon I had school lessons in Belluno, I went to Belluno. I did
19:09the lessons, then in the evening around 5.30pm I took the bus to go up to Erto in
19:19my house. I stopped by the dam around 6:30 PM.
19:29My dad worked in the dam and I had gotten into the habit of waiting for him, it was enough for me to hear
19:38get to the car to be calm and that night like the other nights I felt it
19:44arriving around half past ten at night. Only after less than five minutes I heard him
19:52go away by car, which he never did.
19:56That evening of October 9th 1963 I was at the bar with friends, there was a football match
20:08It was the Wednesday of the Coppa Italia and that evening I had left my mother and grandparents at home.
20:15My wife, who was pregnant, had been visiting her sister for three days.
20:23and at 10.39pm all hell broke loose.
20:30At 10.39pm on October 9, 1963, a gigantic rock slide of approximately 260 million meters
20:39cubes and two kilometers long breaks away from the slopes of Mount Toc and falls rapidly
20:46in the artificial vaccine created by the Vajont dam.
21:10The crash raises three waves. One, rising upwards, reaches the valley and laps the village.
21:18Castle's car, while another one hits Ayrton's car.
21:55The first one came like an earthquake. I was in bed, and my mom woke me up.
22:04I got up, it was like a wind, but you couldn't feel it, you could only hear the wind whistling all over.
22:11And we came up, it was all a mess.
22:17I was half asleep when I woke up, scared, hearing the noise, the splashing of the waters.
22:28on the shores of the lake.
22:30A third terrifying wave, about 250 meters high and 50 million cubic meters of water,
22:37climb over the dam.
22:38A huge mass of debris and mud crashes down with unprecedented violence into the ground below
22:43Piave Valley.
22:45It sweeps away everything in its path, causing the destruction of Longarone.
23:11I start running, I have Longarone in front of me, I see the lights disappear as if they were
23:20machine gun fire and that disorientates me a bit, but in the deepest darkness I keep running and
23:27there I was hit by the first wave, the first wave which was of wind, of wind
23:35and dust of water, not water, dust, so violent that it tore your skin and then I
23:45I feel myself being lifted up and carried away.
23:48At one point I heard a loud thunder and I remember wondering why this
23:55thunder so loud, it's not that we're in summer, it's in summer that thunderstorms happen like this
24:01such loud thunder.
24:04After not even two seconds I heard my grandmother coming up the stairs, she entered the house, in
24:10room saying wait while I close the shutters because the storm is coming.
24:15Those were the last words I ever heard from anyone in my family, actually.
24:20at that moment the light went out, I heard this huge noise that didn't
24:30I know if it was air, if it was water, I haven't the faintest idea.
24:35I had the feeling that the bed had taken a great leap and above all that there was
24:41under the bed like a kind of chasm, something that somehow wanted to attract me
24:47at all costs.
25:02I began with great difficulty to lift my hands and then I needed to touch my
25:08face because I thought I no longer had eyes.
25:11probably this gesture allowed me to breathe because they found me more
25:17500 meters as the crow flies away from home and I was totally underground, I had outside
25:24a foot and a hand.
25:25At a certain point I heard a huge bang, I heard huge shouts and among these
25:31those of my brother that made me despair.
25:34Then I find out that I had made a flight of about 200 meters, the air displacement that preceded
25:41the destructive wave had already destroyed the ongarone.
25:47Then I don't know how it happened, so much water arrived.
25:52I was deposited at the foot of the walls.
25:57Then the water went away and I found myself in a big hole.
26:02And then during the night I screamed until I saw some lights, some electric bulbs
26:08and I screamed, now they came to my rescue.
26:13Most likely I was saved because the mattress I was sleeping on wrapped around me and
26:21I protected my body and that's how I saved myself.
26:29It's an unprecedented disaster.
26:33It is estimated that the shock wave due to the air displacement was double the intensity
26:39generated by the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
26:43Anyone outdoors is pulverized before the water even hits them.
26:48The official data are dramatic.
26:511910 confirmed deaths, of which 1450 in Longarone alone.
26:57In Erto and Casso the victims are 158.
27:01In the sad balance, 487 are under 15 years of age.
27:06But the number of victims may reach over 2000 because many bodies will never be found.
27:12found. The villages of Pirago, Faè, Villanova, Rivalta, were completely destroyed,
27:21Codissago and Castellavazzo were severely hit.
27:26The dam construction site was also overwhelmed, with 54 workers losing their lives.
27:32In total, 1300 people are missing.
27:39This is the Piave Valley, near Longarone, in the Belluno area, where last night there was a
27:44A huge tragedy has struck. A mass of water carried by the Vaion Dam has fallen.
27:50downstream, destroying entire villages and hundreds of families caught in their sleep. A toll of the
27:55disaster is still impossible. In an official statement, the Prefecture of Belluno confirms what
28:00It was held, over 2000 dead. It is from the plane, more than from the ground, the terrifying vision of the
28:07landscape devastated by the fury of the axes, where the gigantic wave passed, is now a
28:13river of fano. We went to the slopes of Mount Toc, from which the immense
28:18A rock and debris landslide cut the lake in two. Water escaped from the basin.
28:23climbing over the dam to make room for the mountain of earth that fell from above. Now everything
28:29All around is desolation and death. On October 13th the President of the Republic
28:35signs visit Belluno and the Vaiont area. He is accompanied by the ministers of the Interior,
28:40defense and health. From above, the muddy scree of Longarone appears populated
28:46of a crowd that digs and works hard to bring the bodies of the victims back to light.
28:53A stone fell into a glass full of water and the water overflowed onto the tablecloth.
28:59That's all. Except the glass was hundreds of meters high and the stone was as big as
29:05a mountain and underneath, on the tablecloth, were thousands of human creatures who did not
29:11they could defend themselves. This is what Dino Buzzati, a well-known writer and journalist from Belluno, wrote,
29:24on the pages of the Corriere della Sera of 11 October 1963. Words that well describe the
29:32disaster caused by the wave of death. The next morning, at the crack of dawn,
29:44The Piave Valley appears like an open-air cemetery. Scenes of devastation everywhere.
29:51A ghostly panorama. Human lives, villages, houses, churches, streets. Everything was swept away in
30:01A few minutes. The train tracks bent like twigs.
30:11I'm writing from a country that no longer exists. It's a tragedy of proportions in our hands. From the earthquake
30:19Nothing so horrendous had ever been seen in Messina in Italy. These are Giampaolo's words.
30:26Panza, then press correspondent at Ungarone. The geography of those places, already shaken by the
30:38construction of the dam, will never be the same again. In Pirago, miraculously, it remained
30:45Only the bell tower remains standing. It will be a symbol of the tragedy.
31:04There are also those who experienced those terrible moments in a different way. The next day
31:10a young man rushes to the disaster site with his camera.
31:18In the morning, when I opened the shop, I turned on the radio and on the radio I heard some
31:26Ungarone tragedy. Naturally, the news was scant and imprecise because they even spoke
31:36of the collapse of the Ungarone dam. I took my car and my camera here from Agordo.
31:458 mm that I have been comparing for a year and through the Duran pass and the Val di Zoldo I arrived
31:53in Pirago di Ungarone. I immediately understood that a disaster had occurred there, a lot of deaths.
32:00because the water has swept away practically the entire town of Ungarone and Pirago. But how many
32:09had there been any deaths? No, absolutely not. How did I get to the bottom of the Ungarone valley, when
32:20the valley opens onto the town of Pirago, the first thing that struck me was the
32:27The church bell tower is still standing. A second thing, I immediately looked at
32:36towards the Vaillant gorge to see if the dam had actually collapsed and instead I saw that this
32:45the dam was still standing and in fact I noticed a large pile of material on top of the dam, which I didn't
32:57I had never seen it. I was able to understand what had happened only after I got home.
33:04and the following days reading the newspapers.
33:18The rescue operation was immediately activated. Army soldiers were sent to the scene,
33:25Alpine troops, firefighters. The US military command based in Aviano and Vicenza also gives its
33:32own contribution, especially through the use of helicopters used to evacuate the villages
33:39The Erto and Casso blocks. Volunteers are arriving from all over Italy.
33:48It's not like an earthquake that you work with a lot of courage, with a lot of desire because you know that underneath
33:56You'll find some wounded. There wasn't that possibility here. Here on the first day we realized
34:03I realized that there was no one alive. We went slowly and as we went along
34:08It turned out that the ongaro was actually no longer there. There was only gravel, mud, rocks. And there we were
34:20we are
34:21We found ourselves faced with a spectacle that was lunar. We began to move, it began
34:28to find the first corpses, others emerged with a hand or a foot. For us it was
34:36very hard. And even our officers who had already been to war and therefore had seen
34:42terrible spectacles both in Russia and in Africa, they also said something like that,
34:48We've never seen it. So we have to roll up our sleeves and, like good officers,
34:55they started giving precise orders, we started digging, we started gathering the bodies,
35:01to compose them, to make sedan chairs because we brought them all down to the Piave as
35:09Trucks could race along the Piave River because there was more track than here, here
35:15There were no more roads, there were no passages, you could only go on foot. The problem
35:20the big one was always the one to dig because often when you dug there was more of a body, you felt it
35:28and you see the Alpine soldier leaning on another. It's not easy, it wasn't easy at all.
35:39we couldn't start the bulldozers and excavators, this was done only after
35:44eight days when we were sure that there was no living soul left on the territory and we
35:50The entire area from the river to just after Longarone was covered in game. Longarone had disappeared.
35:57When some misfortune befalls an Italian town, its people come to it from all over
36:02part. The smaller the countries, the more people they send around the world and therefore the more numerous
36:07These are the returns. The radio has reached everyone. Some are coming from Düsseldorf, from New York,
36:13from Munich, Buenos Aires, Lausanne. The majority come from Milan, Turin, Brescia,
36:17from Bologna, from Rome, from Naples, from Taranto, from the thousand streets of our home that exchange
36:22a people who need to work. Let's take one at random. Where does he come from?
36:29Hello Germani.
36:31How did you hear the news?
36:32I put it on the radio and then for phone calls.
36:35Who's going to look for her?
36:38My mother is a sister, I don't know her.
36:40And he knows nothing about them?
36:41Huh? He doesn't know anything, no.
36:45On their way back, they encounter the first dead. They've laid them out on the side of the road, waiting to be...
36:49recognized.
36:54They come across soldiers and people who have been searching, who will return tomorrow to search or who will not search
36:58more.
36:58Were they saved, madam, or not?
37:01No, not even one. Everyone was left behind, in short.
37:05And everything you could save from your home?
37:07Nothing, absolutely nothing. Not even a rag. These are the only things they could find.
37:14The mother, the father and two brothers, three.
37:16Three brothers.
37:18And did you find them?
37:19No.
37:19No, nothing yet. I've been looking all day, but nothing.
37:22But no, wait.
37:35There used to be a factory here. His brother worked there for years. Where is it now? We should know.
37:41from the mountains. Witnesses are extremely rare and not easy to find.
37:53It is natural that they look for it here, even if the water has brought them as far as Feltre and even further
38:04further down. Where the military moves something, a crowd immediately forms. Someone lucky enough to recognize
38:14his dead. The others leave.
38:23I lost my father, who was 43 years old and was the only one recognized, but why
38:32he had the documents in his pocket, not because he physically was.
38:37my mother, who had turned 40 five days ago, my grandmother, who was my son's mother
38:45father, 67, and a sister, 13.
38:51For days they made us believe that, they made me believe that my parents and my brother
38:57had remained alive. They also hid from me the knowledge, let's say, of the disaster as
39:07all the others who were, other kids who had been transferred to the hospital. Then one day,
39:16After I think a week, a schoolmate, a friend, came to visit me, and to whom
39:25I asked if he knew anything about my parents. And he gave me an answer. The answer was
39:36who had met the same fate as everyone else. They had died like everyone else.
39:46I have 14 family members in the Fortunia cemetery. Of these 14 people, only 7 have been found.
39:55Unfortunately, we never found my mother, not then, not ever. So here I hope it's in the
40:05cemetery of the victims, but it is presumed that she is buried along the axis of the Piave that reached the sea.
40:17Thousands of lives shattered, entire families torn apart by grief and a rage and a sense
40:24of unbearable injustice for the survivors.
40:27Is it true that we knew for a few days that the mountain was about to collapse?
40:31Yes, the mountain has been in danger for some time.
40:55Yet, amidst a thousand difficulties, we will try to react, to start again, to rebuild the countries
41:02destroyed. Many will emigrate, they will leave those places forever. For everyone it will be
41:09an indelible wound in the soul, with a very difficult future to face.
41:15Where will he go now?
41:16I don't know, they're taking me.
41:19Have you lost any family members?
41:21Yes.
41:22How many?
41:23One so far.
41:26Is he taking all his stuff away?
41:28Yes, it's possible, yes. And if not, I'll let her go.
41:34Thank you.
41:37And now where will he go?
41:39In Cimolais.
41:40Is there another house in Cimolais?
41:42No, I have a house, I rented two rooms there, for the moment.
41:47And then what will he do?
41:49We don't know what he'll do, we just have to wait for what comes, right?
41:54In the following months, the Red Cross, the RAI, the Corriere della Sera and the Stampa launch
42:00fundraisers across the peninsula to help the affected populations.
42:08There are responsibilities, everyone says that. Let's hope they have good sense and find the answer.
42:13those responsible for this catastrophe out.
42:15Immediately after the disaster, a first government commission identified specific responsibilities.
42:23But then, in May 1964, the Ministry of Public Works established a subsequent commission
42:31parliamentary inquiry to ascertain the causes of the disaster.
42:36The final report, released the following year, concludes that it was not foreseeable.
42:43An extraordinary and fortuitous event, in short.
42:50Communists and socialists disagree.
42:52The Vajont disaster becomes a political issue.
42:57It is the first great disappointment for the survivors and relatives of the victims.
43:03The examining magistrate for the trial is Mario Fabri.
43:07The obstacles that stand before him, economic, financial, political,
43:12they are huge.
43:14But the magistrate, with tenacity and courage, takes action from the beginning to seek the truth.
43:21and give justice to the Vajont victims.
43:28Judge Fabri, who was great, who managed to conduct a criminal trial,
43:37otherwise everything would have gone dark, right?
43:41Judge Fabri managed to have nine alleged perpetrators sent to trial.
43:48The only real, constant, nagging problem was how to do it quickly.
43:56I say this despite the fact that the investigation lasted over four years.
44:02And he was looking for geologists to help him write a document, right?
44:12A relationship.
44:15After an initial assessment, which was entrusted to six illustrious Italian technicians and a foreign professor,
44:26an expert opinion which I consider unsuitable for a complete judgment on the merits,
44:35I thought it appropriate to investigate further.
44:39He had to go to Switzerland and France to find geologists.
44:44Only one Italian, who was Floriano Calvino, a geologist, was Italo Calvino's brother, right?
44:52That this geologist, who had the University of Genoa...
45:00I was just a professor on assignment, not entirely irremovable.
45:04And I found myself faced with opinions already expressed by illustrious professors, authoritative opinions.
45:12Doubts? I had doubts about the validity of such authoritative opinions.
45:18And that made me decide.
45:19In a lesson he said, remember that the history of Vaillant is a history of controllers
45:28who did not control, of wise men who did not know, of technicians and engineers drained of intelligence.
45:39And of so many people who would have had the duty and the good sense to save people,
45:48and they didn't.
45:50This is the Vaillant.
45:52Public opinion is following the long and complex legal proceedings with indifference.
45:58The first degree trial was held between 1968 and 1969 in L'Aquila, for reasons of public order,
46:06more than 700 kilometers from the disaster site.
46:10The L'Aquila Court issued its verdict this evening regarding the Vaillant incident.
46:22The cornerstone of the accusation, the predictability of the event, ends up in the trash.
46:28Landslide and flood crimes are excluded.
46:31It's another wound for the Vaillant survivors.
46:36The appeal trial also took place in L'Aquila in 1970.
46:43In the sentence, some defendants are found guilty of landslide,
46:47flooding and multiple manslaughter.
46:54The following year, the Court of Cassation in Rome, just two weeks after the statute of limitations,
47:00definitively closes the criminal proceedings.
47:04The director of the Hydraulic Construction Service of Sade
47:08and the head of the Dam Service of the Ministry of Public Works
47:12and member of the Testing Commission
47:14they are found guilty of negligent disaster, landslide and flood,
47:20aggravated by the foreseeability of the event and multiple manslaughter.
47:25They were sentenced to five and three years and eight months of imprisonment respectively.
47:38The story of the great Vaillant, which lasted twenty years,
47:43it ends in three minutes of Apocalypse, with the holocaust of two thousand victims.
47:48This is what Tina Merlin will write in her book Sulla pelle viva.
47:53A troubled work that the journalist from Belluno managed to get published only in 1983
48:00and where the events that led to one of the greatest tragedies in Italian history are recounted and explored in depth.
48:10I can't forget.
48:13Vaillant has changed me profoundly,
48:16so much so that I wrote the day after the catastrophe
48:19that I felt guilty for not having done more to prevent the tragedy from happening.
48:26The people who brought the Vaillant story to light are first and foremost
48:33Tina Merlin who wrote after Vaillant on living skin
48:39telling the true story, how things happened
48:44and naturally highlighting human responsibilities.
48:50The person who perhaps had the greatest impact on a collective level, on a public level
48:57it was instead the civil oration of Marco Paolini in 1997
49:02which awakened the consciences of Italians
49:07and also awakened our conscience
49:10brought back to mind the incident
49:14and probably us survivors too
49:18with Paolini we managed to reconnect the facts
49:24and somehow take ownership of it
49:28in the sense of being able to then transfer our experiences
49:37and begin to open up, to remove this anguish that was inside us.
49:46We struggle to get ourselves heard by those who should give us a hand.
49:49we never had anyone tell us
49:56look, it's not your fault
49:58you are there
49:59that's why you should continue this conversation
50:03this story
50:04it's not that you're guilty of anything
50:07and instead I always felt guilty
50:10guilty of being alive
50:12I always told myself
50:13if anyone had asked me
50:15Do you want to go with your family or stay here?
50:17I would have said I want to go with my parents
50:19I never wanted to leave them
50:21I never wanted to be left alone
50:24and they are all traumas that I continue to carry with me anyway
50:29this enormous sense of responsibility
50:32that sometimes crushes me, sometimes takes my breath away
50:37and feeling guilty after 60 years is hard
50:41it's really hard
50:45the long and troubled battle for compensation
50:49towards the municipalities affected by the disaster
50:52it was finally concluded only in 2000
50:55a good 37 years later
50:57at Palazzo Chigi in front of Prime Minister Amato
51:00the disaster warning agreement has been signed
51:03the heirs of the victims
51:05the municipalities of Longarone, Baglion, Erto, Casso and Castello Gavazzo
51:09they will finally be compensated
51:11it is the epilogue of a page of history
51:13the latest chapter in a legal dispute
51:15which seemed endless
51:17the compensation was due by the State
51:20from Enel and Montedison
51:21but the agreement had stalled
51:23on how much each should pay to the victims
51:26State, Enel and Montedison
51:29which Sade had acquired
51:31must support in equal parts
51:33compensation for damages
51:37In 2008
51:38a UN report
51:40indicates the Vaillant tragedy
51:42as the worst example of management
51:44of the territory and the environment
51:46of history
51:47a sad record
51:49in the document
51:51it is read that the Vaillant one
51:52it was a classic example of an avoidable disaster
51:55caused by the failure of the engineer
51:59and geologists
51:59in understanding the nature of the problem
52:02that they were trying to address
52:04a wound
52:06that will remain alive forever
52:08Us for over 30 years
52:10we kept it inside us
52:12the tragedy
52:14like an event
52:17private
52:18intimate
52:24many survivors and survivors
52:26even today
52:27they didn't talk about it
52:30and they don't like to talk about it
52:32even if it's good
52:33that people
52:34have knowledge
52:36of what actually
52:38it happened
52:39and what we have
52:41lived
52:42our past
52:44October 9th
52:46it's always
52:49the end
52:50it's the beginning
52:51of something
52:53but it's always
52:54of the same thing
52:55it's always
52:56the Vaillant
52:57it's always
52:59what took you away
53:01it's always
53:03what you are looking for
53:04to rebuild
53:05it's always
53:06what you are looking for
53:07to make people understand
53:08to those who are left
53:09what was lost
53:13the desire
53:14that he never has again
53:15to happen
53:16the time of remembrance
53:18of tears
53:20above all
53:21those not
53:22take it out
53:24the ones that fill you up
53:26the soul
53:26that fill you up
53:27the heart
53:27that don't allow you
53:29to breathe
53:30but anyway
53:31October 9th
53:32it will be every day
53:36The memory
53:38always comes back
53:38to that damned one
53:39October 9th
53:401963
53:41and to the words
53:43present
53:44in a relationship
53:44of the firefighters
53:45in which
53:46were described
53:47the operations
53:48of rescue
53:49carried out by these
53:50the next day
53:51of the disaster
53:54The Vaillant
53:55it doesn't fit
53:56in the schemes
53:57of fatality
53:57and resignation
53:59it doesn't look like
54:00in some way
54:01to cataclysms
54:02of the past
54:02Pompei
54:03Messina
54:04Agadir
54:04he is not from the family
54:06of cyclones
54:06earthquakes
54:07eruptions
54:08floods
54:09of when that is
54:10the arcana
54:11uncontrollable
54:11natural forces
54:12they explode
54:13on his own behalf
54:14At Vaillant
54:15nature
54:16she got angry
54:17multiplying
54:18his violence
54:18devastating
54:19also because
54:20the man
54:21short-sighted fact
54:22from the mirage
54:22of a superb
54:23technical conquest
54:24and from greed
54:25of high profits
54:27the provoked
54:28is challenged
54:28with foolish
54:29recklessness
54:30and then he has
54:31underrated
54:32the power
54:32the fury
54:33to the obvious announcement
54:34of danger
54:35looming
54:36when still
54:37it was possible
54:37to avert the massacre
54:39of the two thousand
54:40and more human lives
54:41overwhelmed
54:42and more human lives
55:24Thank you all.
55:52Thank you all.
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