The dam was proposed and constructed by the Viganò company. A request to construct it was submitted in 1907 and construction began in 1916. In 1920, construction began on the foundation. In September of that year, local … See more

At 6:30 am on 1 December 1923, a buttress on the dam cracked and subsequently failed. Within minutes, an estimated 4,500,000 m (3,648 acre⋅ft) of water gushed from the reservoir at an elevation of 1,535 m (5,… See more

The dam was originally permitted as a gravity dam with a slight curvature, but was changed to a multiple arch dam by the client to save money.
The permit was not revised for this change until after th… See more

The dam's failure was influential in the development of Italian dam design and risk assessment. As a result of the accident, multiple arch dams fell out of favour.
A much smaller dam was built spanning the gap left by t… See more

Media related to Gleno Dam at Wikimedia Commons
• Gleno Dam History Archived 22 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine at Scalve.it (Italian and English) See more