Dam failures in the 20th century: nearly 1000 avoidable victims in Italy alone

The frequency of large dam failures all over the world, with a high toll of lives lost, pinpoints the still unsolved problems of flood risk resulting from the presence of large dams in built-up areas. Some of these failures and other related incidents took place in Italy in the past century. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the three worst cases of dam failures occurring in Italy, analyzing the causes which led to collapse. They are the dams of Gleno (1923), Molare (1935) and Stava (1985).