In the small town of Termeno sulla Strada del Vino, in northern Italy, a 300-year-old manor house belonging to the Order of the Catholic Church was badly damaged after it collapsed strongest rockfall. This story happened on January 21, but only recently the owners of the building, from which there was practically no stone unturned, estimated the damage caused: we are talking about millions of euros.
According to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, a whole boulder of 400 cubic meters in size fell on an old manor, which broke away from a high cliff.
Fortunately, representatives of the Catholic Servite Order, to whom the estate belongs, were not affected. However, if a fragment of a mountain rock rolled a few meters to the left, then a residential building would become its victim.
By the way, it miraculously remained in value and safety: another large boulder (160 cubic meters) stopped literally a few tens of centimeters from the wall. For security reasons, local authorities decided to undermine a dangerous section of rock, from which huge stones rolled down.
In addition to the destroyed estate, a huge boulder also caused significant damage to nearby vineyards, and also defeated a tractor parked near the building, while hitting a small car nearby. The impressive size of the boulder, which is located on the other side of the estate, indicates that this is not the first "attack" of the rock on the site.
Meanwhile, the authorities are offering all local residents who are afraid of a new rockfall to live in evacuation until a dangerous mountain section is blown up by specialists.
As geologists explain, stones from rocks break off under the influence of gravity. However, a rockfall cannot begin for no reason. The cause of this natural disaster can be groundwater, eroding mountains or weathering, as well as earthquakes, which are by no means a rare occurrence in Italy.
The largest collapse of rocks in history occurred back in 1911 in the Pamirs (Tajikistan) on the night of February 17-18.
Then, from the slopes of the Muzkol Range in the valley of the Murgab River, a huge amount of fragments of various sizes fell. The fall height of the boulders was 5,000 meters. According to eyewitnesses, after the collapse in the region there was a small earthquake.
Only many years later, scientists managed to establish the reason why the strongest rockfall, known to this day by scientists, occurred. They managed to establish that the strata, which are the constituent components of mountain ranges, were tilted towards the river valley, washing the right slopes of the valley for millennia.
The power of the impact from falling stones was the greatest: all the seismic stations in the world were able to notice and fix it.
At the site of the fall of huge boulders, Lake Sarez was born. Now it extends to sixty thousand meters and goes to a depth of 500 meters, striking everyone with its beauty and crystal clear water.
