Longarone

In Longarone, in the Belluno area of Italy, renewed attention is being paid to the story of Marinella, a victim of the 1963 Vajont disaster. A firefighter found a notebook in the mud after the catastrophe, and the yellowed pages, now preserved at the monumental cemetery for the victims, keep her memory alive and are drawing public interest.

A new study on the 1963 Vajont disaster, published in Italy, argues the mountain landslide occurred in two phases. Researchers say a clay layer hardened like rock, giving a colossal push to the water in the reservoir and amplifying the wave that destroyed Longarone and killed nearly 2,000 people. Italian media, especially in the Veneto, are giving prominence to the findings, which revise the accepted reconstruction of one of the country's worst man-made catastrophes.