Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
that involved a shipment of contaminated wheat) and in Guatemala
—
but, in spite of
their severity, they received only a low media exposure.
Behind every industrial accident directly or indirectly caused by technological
factors in some cases there is no fatality but negligence and underestimation of risk.
These factors played a decisive role
in the Kiev large-scale
mudslide occurred near a brick factory in 1961 and in Italy, in the Vajont disaster.
This accident was caused by the terrible effects of two giant waves caused by the
collapse of a landslide over a dam built below Mount Toc on Longarone and other
small villages near Belluno, in North-Eastern Italy. While in the Minamata disaster
Chisso Corporation acted for a long time in complete secrecy, denying any
involvement even after the discovery of contamination, the Vajont disaster was a
tragedy foretold. In fact, before the collapse of the dam, the electrical company that
was the owner of the site, the local and central authorities were informed about the
risks of a possible structural failure of the dam by the inhabitants, by some jour-
nalists and above all by direct signs. Notwithstanding this, the village of Longarone
and other small communities near the dam were completely swept away in the night
of October 9, 1963 (1,900 victims). In the days that followed the disaster domestic
public opinion was informed in detail by the newspapers, radio and television news
about the apocalyptic effects caused by the
—
though not exclusive
—
“
”
, high more than seventy
meters, that hit the villages below the dam, about the blanket of rock and mud that
had erased everything, about the rescuers and about the stories of those who, still in
shock, were pure fatality escaped the disaster. The controversies that had accom-
panied the construction of the dam on an area geologically at risk did not
wave of death
nd that a
pale echo on the newspapers and other media. When the rituals and rhetoric of
disasters ended, the Vajont disaster gradually vanished from the media.
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8.5 From 1970s to the Early 1980s
For many reasons, the early 1970s are an important turning point in the history of
disasters. It was in fact during these years that the major international organizations
began to work, for the
rst time, in this area in an organic way. In 1972, for
example,
ce, the United Nations Disaster Relief
Organization (UNDRO) with special competence in rescue and humanitarian aid
and primarily operated in case of natural disasters.
Since the mid-1970s, industrial and technological disasters had a great increase
throughout the world, especially in those countries the most affected by the process
of modernization and development. This was particularly evident in Asia, where
these accidents assumed in many cases the character of a real emergency. All this
was partly the result of the development process involved in these areas as a result
of the globalization process and of the gradual relocation of industrial plants from
the UN created a special of
18
Reberschak and Mattozzi (
2009
) and Silei (
2013
).
