The Dam Survived. Two Thousand People Downstream Did Not — Vajont, 1963

▶ Watch the full series:    • The Wreckage Report — Every Episode   🔔 Subscribe:    / @thewreckagereport   On 9 October 1963, around 270 million cubic metres of Monte Toc slid into the Vajont reservoir in about forty-five seconds. The water it displaced went over the top of the dam as a wave more than 150 metres above the crest. Around two thousand people died in the valley below. The dam is still standing. Undamaged. It is there today with a mountain pressed against it. In this video we break down the engineering: why a thin double-curvature arch dam is so strong, what a fossil landslide is and why Monte Toc was one, how reservoir water reduces the friction holding a slope in place, and why the fill-and-drain cycle the engineers used as a brake was actually loosening the mountain a little more each time. The uncomfortable finding is that nothing about the dam failed. The design was sound, the concrete was good, and the structure absorbed a load thousands of times outside anything it was built for. The failure was in where the boundary of the project was drawn: the dam was engineering, and the valley was consultation. Based on the official inquiries and the extensive engineering literature on Vajont, which is now a standard case study in geotechnics worldwide. Educational and respectful — this channel covers disasters to understand them, never to sensationalize. No victims and no graphic aftermath are shown. Chapters: 0:00 A mountain, a reservoir and forty-five seconds 1:04 The dam that could not fail 2:40 The mountain that rots 4:21 Operating a mountain like a valve 5:54 Why filling and draining made it worse 7:34 The night of 9 October 9:36 What every investigation concluded 11:27 The boundary nobody drew ────────────── MORE FROM THE WRECKAGE REPORT ▶ Every episode, in order:    • The Wreckage Report — Every Episode   🔔 New disaster breakdown every week:    / @thewreckagereport   This channel covers engineering failures to understand them, never to sensationalize. No graphic content. Sources listed in each video. #engineering #documentary #geotechnical #vajont #damfailure #landslide