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She was charged with spreading false and tendentious news that disturbed public order, and was acquitted. On 9 October 1963 a landslide of roughly 270 million cubic metres fell into the reservoir, and the wave that overtopped the intact dam destroyed Longarone and killed about 1,910 people.
Merlin argues that the Vajont disaster was built step by step through decisions, not caused by nature. Each warning sign, including a 1960 slide into the reservoir, a long crack opening on the mountainside and model tests of possible waves, was treated as a parameter to manage by adjusting the water level. It was never treated as a reason to stop. The company kept filling and emptying the reservoir to test and profit from the plant, so the known risk was converted into an operating procedure.
Mountain residents read the terrain directly: cracks in fields, tremors, the old place-name and lore of a 'moving' mountain. Technical and state authorities framed these observations as the fears of backward, uneducated people who opposed progress. This framing turned accurate observations into a public-order problem to be policed, when they should have been treated as data to investigate.
In the Vajont case, the bodies meant to check the hydroelectric company largely relied on its data and endorsed its plans. These included ministry inspectors, consulting geologists, local authorities and much of the national press. The communities were left without any neutral arbiter. Their only recourse was self-organized committees and a few journalists, and these were treated as agitators rather than as a safety mechanism.