Reconstruction
Most of the survivors were moved into a newly built village, Vajont, 50 km south east on the river Tagliamento plain. Those who insisted on returning to their mountain life in Erto e Casso were strongly discouraged. Longarone and other villages in the Piave valley were rebuilt with modern houses and factories.
The government used the disaster to promote the industrialization of the North-East of Italy. Survivors were entitled to 'business start-up' loans, public subsidies and ten years tax exemption, all of which they could 'sell-on' to major companies from the Venice region. These concessions were then converted into millions of lira for plants elsewhere. Among the corporations were Zanussi (now owned by Electrolux), Ceramica Dolomite (now owned by American Standard), Confezioni SanRemo, and SAVIC (now owned by Italcementi).
Compensation measures did not clearly differentiate between victims and people who lived nearby, thus much of the compensation went to people who had suffered little damage, creating a negative public image.
A pumping station was installed in the dam basin to keep the lake at a constant level, and the bypass gallery was lengthened beyond the dam to let the water flow down to the Piave valley. The dam wall is still in place and maintained, but there are no plans to exploit it. The dry basin, filled with landslip, has been open to visitors since 2002.
The memorial church in Longarone—although its construction was strongly opposed by the surviving parish priest—is a late masterpiece of the famous architect Giovanni Michelucci.
Read more about this topic: Vajont Dam