Case Study

1935 Sella Zerbino Dam-Break Case Revisited:

A New Hydrologic and Hydraulic Analysis
G. Petaccia 1 and L. Natale 2

Abstract: The Bric Zerbino and Sella Zerbino barrages dammed two branches of the Orba Valley in Italy to create the Ortiglieto reservoir
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and supply the Molare hydropower plant. The secondary dam, the Sella Zerbino, was erected over a fault, whose geotechnical characteristics
were deemed extremely poor. On August 13, 1935, a very intense and localized storm produced a flood that overtopped both dams. On that
tragic occasion the Sella Zerbino Dam collapsed at 1:27 p.m. resulting in catastrophic destruction and 111 victims. Nevertheless, the Sella
Zerbino tragedy was soon forgotten. The designers of the dam and the directors of the electric company [Officine Elettriche Genovesi (OEG)]
managing the power plant were acquitted in the subsequent trial. This paper aims at revisiting and studying the historical case with current
hydraulic and hydrologic knowledge to show that the flaws in the design process infringed even upon the Italian regulations on dam design
and construction in place at that time. The rainfall event has been reconstructed to evaluate its return period. The flood wave entering the
Ortiglieto reservoir has been evaluated. The dam-break wave propagation has been simulated with a two-dimensional (2D) model based on
shallow water equations written in conservative form. A finite volume first-order numerical solver on an unstructured grid has been used to
integrate the equations. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)HY.1943-7900.0001760. © 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Two-dimensional (2D) dam-break modeling; Case study; Rainfall runoff analysis; Unstructured grid; Flood inundation
maps; Hydraulic hazard.

Introduction
On August 13, 1935, an intense storm hit the Orba and Stura
watersheds (Fig. 1). The resulting flood overfilled the Ortiglieto
reservoir. The main dam, Bric Zerbino (Zerbino Peak), and the
auxiliary dam, Sella Zerbino (Zerbino Saddle) were overtopped.
Although the main dam, founded on firm rock, was not damaged,
the auxiliary dam, placed on a fault, collapsed due to uplift force.
The structural analysis of Petaccia et al. (2016a) shows that two
blocks of the secondary dam were already unstable and susceptible
to overturning when the water level of the reservoir reached its
maximum elevation. The ensuing dam-break wave damaged build-
ings and infrastructure and led to 111 casualties.
Technical carelessness and the lack of quality control were the
basis for the disaster. The subsequent trial, which regrettably ended
with a verdict of acquittal, is reminiscent of the Bayless dam case
(Kline 2013). The Sella Zerbino Dam was the epitome of the worst
design and execution errors for a gravity dam listed by Jansen
(1983) and Kalustyan (1995): spillways inadequacy, fractured and
poor-quality rock foundation resulting in extensive seepage and
high uplift pressure, and no drainage wells or grout curtains.
At the beginning of the 20th century, many designers underes-
timated the importance of including uplift force in the loads
(Biswas and Chatterju 1971; Jansen 1983; Anderson et al. 1998).
In this case the project completely ignored uplift force even though
the Ministry of Public Works issued a rule in 1921 requiring
1
Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Univ. of Pavia,
Pavia 27100, Italy (corresponding author). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000
-0001-5478-4013. Email: petaccia@unipv.it
2
Full Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Univ. of
Pavia, Pavia 27100, Italy. Email: natale@unipv.it
Note. This manuscript was submitted on September 6, 2018; approved
on December 5, 2019; published online on May 20, 2020. Discussion per-
iod open until October 20, 2020; separate discussions must be submitted for
individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Hydraulic Engineer-
ing, © ASCE, ISSN 0733-9429.
evaluation of the underneath water pressure for any dam founded
on poor-quality rock (DM48/1921). This first decree was issued
before the beginning of the construction of the Molare hydropower
plant. It was confirmed and updated after the Gleno dam break by a
Royal decree in 1925 (RD 2540/1925) and reconfirmed in 1931
(RD1370/1931).
The 1925 decree dictated that a detailed geological and geotech-
nical survey be executed at the dam site and the 1931 decree
allowed the Public Work Ministry officers, responsible for safety
checks, to force the emptying of the reservoir if remediless geotech-
nical or structural problems appeared.
Italian dam safety regulations were issued in a timely manner
(Natale et al. 1998) as compared to other countries (Rose 2013)
but they were initially misconceived. Concerning the Sella Zerbino
Dam, the technical validity of the regulations was not understood
even though conspicuous water leakages were from the toe of the
Sella Zerbino Dam were observed. The technical regulations were
considered to be similar to administrative ordinances to be evaded
by legal tricks. This behavior was deemed acceptable by the judge
at the end of the criminal trial.
A large number of concrete dam-break studies can be found in
the scientific literature. Most refer to sunny conditions and instan-
taneous dam breaks. Hervouet and Petitjean (1999) and Valiani
et al. (2002) simulated the Malpasset dam break with a two-
dimensional (2D) model. Begnudelli and Sanders (2007) simulated
the instantaneous St. Francis dam break, which occurred in sunny
conditions at the initial reservoir filling. The Gleno dam break,
which occurred in sunny conditions 40 days after its first filling,
was simulated by Pilotti et al. (2011). Kim and Sanders (2016)
reproduced the collapse of two dams in South Korea, due to a
typhoon, with a 2D model. Stilmant et al. (2018) examined the gen-
eration of warning waves released by a dam in a mountain stream
with a 2D model.
The present paper aims at understanding the consequences of the
Sella Zerbino Dam collapse; verifying the numerical simulations with
historical witnesses (Bonaria 2013); giving a complete view of what

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Fig. 1. (a) Location of Ortiglieto Reservoir; and (b) Ortiglieto reservoir, Sella and Bric Zerbino Dams positions [reprinted from Regione Liguria
Geoportale under Creative Commons-BY-3.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)].

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Fig. 2. Geological cross-section at the site of foundation of Sella and Brica Zerbino Dam, view from upstream. (Data from Capponi 2014.)

Fig. 3. Bric Zerbino Dam, view from downstream.

occurred, which was not completely understood at the time of the
tragic event; and reproducing with an accurate two-dimensional
model the various aspects of a very complex real case study.
Molare Plant
The Ortiglieto reservoir was formed by barring: (1) the narrow gorge
at the peak of Bric Zerbino’s right side, where the Orba flows, and
(2) the saddle at the left side of Bric Zerbino. The Ortiglieto reser-
voir’s watershed area is 141 km2 with a concentration time of 5.5 h
(Petaccia and Natale 2013b); it develops on the Ligurian-Piedmont
Apennine facing the Po valley [Figs. 1(a and b)].
The design of both dams was modified several times from the
first project in 1899 to the opening of the plant in 1925. Various
modifications, approved during construction, increased the dam’s
height to enlarge the reservoir’s capacity and the plant’s profitabil-
ity and slightly reduced the discharge capacity of the outlets.
Geological surveys were conducted only on the site of the
main dam (Bric Zerbino) where the foundation rock is a layer
of compact serpentinites of good mechanical properties, but the
results were used also for the site of the auxiliary dam (Sella
Zerbino) which rested on a contact fault between serpentine schist
and prasinite, as shown in the geological section of Fig. 2 (Capponi
2014). The subvertical milonite layer, located between the two geo-
logical formations, constitutes a clear weakness point (Bonaria and
Tosatti 2013).
The installed hydroelectric power was approximately 18,000 kW
and the maximum diverted discharge was 24 m3 =s.
The Bric Zerbino curved gravity dam (Fig. 3) and the Sella
Zerbino straight dam (Fig. 4) were built in cyclopean concrete. The
latter was built in five blocks separated by joints (OEG 1925). The
main data for both dams are given in Table 1.
The spillways were located only at the main dam (Bric Zerbino):
12 Heyn siphons with crests placed at the normal water level; a
side-channel spillway on the right abutment of the dam; a high-
pressure relief outlet controlled by a bell valve; and a bottom outlet.
The valve room of the bottom outlet was accessible only in dry
conditions. The position of the spillways is shown in Fig. 3.
A few days after the dam opened in August 1925, a flood showed
that the release capacity was inadequate, hence the side spillway was
swiftly modified; the final part of the crest was lowered and a drum

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 Fig. 4. Sella Zerbino Dam view from downstream.
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Table 1. Main characteristics of Bric Zerbino and Sella Zerbino dams
Main characteristics Units 1926
Maximum water elevation m a.s.l. 323
Normal water elevation m a.s.l. 322
Crest elevation m a.s.l. 325.5
Live storage 106 m3 17.9
Maximum capacity 106 m3 19.04
Bric Zerbino height m 47
Sella Zerbino height m 14.5
Bric Zerbino length m 145.5
Sella Zerbino length m 108
Note: m a.s.l. = metres above sea level.
gate, to be opened when the reservoir elevation overcame the normal
water elevation, was added to the side channel.
The authors verified experimentally the working operation of
the spillways on Froude scale models. A 1:30 scale model was
adopted for the siphons. The tests, carried out under steady-state
conditions, showed that the pressure flow starts when the water
level in the reservoir attains the maximum water elevation (MWE).
When the reservoir level is lower than the MWE, the released dis-
charge does not exceed 20 m3 =s which corresponds to less than one
half of the design discharge of 43 m3 =s.
Laboratory tests confirmed that the siphon turns out to be an
inefficient flood spillway, even though the model delays the begin-
ning of the siphon’s full operation as atmospheric pressure and air
concentration in water cannot be correctly scaled in the model.
The details of the experiment can be found in Petaccia and
Fenocchi (2015).
The stage-discharge relationship for the side-channel spillway
was derived experimentally on a 1:40 scale model. The discharge
overflowing both dams was also defined experimentally on the
model which represents a portion of the main dam. The complete
description of the scale model can be found in Fenocchi and
Petaccia (2014).
The inlet of the penstock supplying four Francis turbines
coupled with two alternators in the power plant was located up-
stream of the left side abutment of the Sella Zerbino Dam. The
design discharge of the Ortiglieto spillways was Qd ¼ 560 m3 =s.
Event of August 13, 1935
On August 13, 1935, an intense downpour hit the higher Orba,
Stura, and Gorzente watersheds, an area 350-km2 wide. The storm
originated due to the interaction of the southeastern, humid, and
warm Mediterranean currents and the cold currents coming from
the northwest (Visentini 1936). The disturbance headed toward
the Stura and Gorzente valleys. This kind of event occurs frequently
in the Apennine area facing the Ligurian Sea.
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The rainfall lasted 9 h with two different gales: the peak of the
first occurred between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. and the second between
2:00 and 3:00 p.m. The second storm was remarkable. The total
rainfall, averaged on the Orba basin which was closed at Ortiglieto
was 366 mm, whereas on the Stura basin which was closed 5 km
upstream of the Orba-Stura junction was 411 mm (Fig. 5). Those
values correspond to 19% and 20% of the total annual rainfall, re-
spectively, on those basins. The Lavagnina dam on the Gorzente
valley was not damaged even though the rainfall intensity attained
the maximum at that location.
The surface area of the Ortiglieto reservoir was approximately
14 km2 at the beginning of the event but increased after the
collapse of the dam (Fig. 6). At 10:00 a.m., when the water in
the reservoir reached 323 m above sea level (meter a.s.l.) mud and
debris clogged the bell valve of the high-pressure relief outlet.
At 11 a.m. the Heyn siphons started to operate. The penstock
was kept open and served as a flood outlet after the turbines were
turned off. The bottom outlet was not opened to prevent dangerous
vibrations to the dam. The operation room was not accessible when
its opening was decided.
The auxiliary dam collapsed at 1:27 p.m. The reservoir elevation
was 326.7 m a.s.l. and the stored volume was 23.44 ×106 m3 . The
siphons released 450 m3 =s and the side channel 334 m3 =s. The dis-
charge overflowing the main dam and the secondary dam was 340
and 210 m3 =s respectively. Just before the collapse of the Sella Zer-
bino Dam, the reservoir exited 1,360 m3 =s.
Witnesses provided detailed information on flooding, damage to
buildings, and loss of lives but the records of the arrival time of the
wave in the different sites are confused, as often happens in such a
dramatic situation. At 1:20 p.m., the dam keeper stopped reading
the staff gauge and left, afraid of being involved in the disaster.
At 1:27 p.m., the telephone cable, lying over the crest of the sec-
ondary dam, broke cutting off any connection between the dam and
the powerhouse. Engineers immediately turned off the turbines and
the dam collapsed a few minutes later (Bonaria 2013).
Attendants sent to check the progression of the event stated that
the dam collapsed by blocks, starting from the left side. The flow
swept away the blocks of the dam, completely removing even the
basement, and the Orba river flowed into the just-opened breach.
A subsequent flood, which occurred on August 28, 1935, swept
away the remains of the left abutment.
Hydrological Modeling of the 1935 Event
The Orba and Stura hourly rainfall hyetographs are deduced from
the hyetograph recorded at the Lavagnina station. The effective
rainfall is calculated using the Soil Conservation Service (SCS)
method (SCS 1985). The basin runoff curve number is determined
for soil initially in dry conditions because the rainstorm occurred
after a long drought.
J. Hydraul. Eng.
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Fig. 5. August 8, 1935 daily isohyetal map with the rainfall gauging stations and position of the Sella Zerbino and Bric Zerbino Dams.
The Orba watershed was divided into four subbasins closed at
the reservoir. The Stura watershed was divided into two subbasins.
The rainfall-runoff process was modeled by means of the geomor-
phological unit hydrograph model (Rodriguez-Iturbe and Valdez
1979; Rosso 1984). The basins’ characteristics were taken from
a 20 × 20-m digital elevation model (DEM). The peak discharge
Fig. 6. Observed and simulated Ortiglieto Reservoir elevation for the
historical event (Line A) and the scenario with all spillways working
(Line B).
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of the flood entering the reservoir was about 3,270 m3 =s (Fig. 11),
including the rainfall that fell directly on the reservoir. The com-
parison between the reservoir elevations observed by the dam keep-
ers and the simulated one is shown in Fig. 6 by Line A and the
scenario with all the spillways working is shown by Line B.
The dashed line represents the time of the secondary dam collapse.
The detailed description of the hydrological study can be found
in Petaccia and Natale (2013b).
Dam-Break Wave Propagation
The propagation of the Orba dam-break wave and the Stura flood
wave was simulated using OndeRotturaSbarramentiArtificiali
(ORSA2D) computer code, developed by the authors on behalf of
the Italian Dam Service. (Petaccia and Natale 2013a; Petaccia et al.
2013).
ORSA2D uses commercial graphical interfaces for the output.
To carry on real-time simulations, an ORSA2D parallelized version
was implemented exploiting multicore personal computing (PC)
systems and graphics processing unit (GPU) architectures under
the Open Multi-Processing (OpenMP) and the NVIDIAs Compute
Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) frameworks. CUDA archi-
tecture is usually developed for structured computational grids
(Vacondio et al. 2017) which allow a direct application of the pro-
gramming language. Unstructured grids can better describe envi-
ronments with a complex topography and critical domain areas
J. Hydraul. Eng.
 (Lacasta et al. 2014). The current ORSA2D version runs on un-
structured grids (Petaccia et al. 2016b; Persi et al. 2018).
The ORSA2D mathematical model is based on the shallow
water equations (SWE) written in conservative form (Liggett 1975)

∂U ∂F ∂G
þ þ ¼S ð1Þ
∂t ∂x ∂y
Fig. 7. Sketch of the finite volume discretization.
0 1 0 1
0 1 qx qy
h B 2 C B q ·q C
B C B qx gh2 C B x y C
Bq C B C B C
U ¼B xC F¼B h þ 2 C G¼B h C The eigenvectors ðeÞ ~ m
i;k are defined by
@ A B C B 2 C
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qy @ qx · qy A @ qy gh2 A 0 1 0 1
þ 1 0
h 2 B ~ xC B C
h
0 1 0 1 0 1 e~ 1i;k ¼ @ u~ þ cn A e~ 2i;k ¼ @ −cn
~ yA
0 0 p
B C B C B C v~ þ cn
~ y ~ x
cn
B C B −ghS x C B C 0 1
i;k i;k
S ¼ S1 þ S2 þ S3 ¼ B ghS0 x C þ B f CþB0C ð2Þ
@ A @ A @ A 1
−ghSf y 0 B u~ − cn
~ xC
ghS0 y
e~ 3i;k ¼@ A ð6Þ
v~ − cn
~ y i;k
where x and y = spatial coordinates; U = dependent variable vector;
F = flux vector along the x direction; G = flux vector along the The Harten–Hyman entropy correction is applied to prevent
y direction; t = time; qx and qy = unit discharges along coordinate nonphysical oscillations (Toro 2009). The time step is evaluated
axes; h = water depth; and g = gravity acceleration. The source according to the Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy (CFL) condition. In this
term, S, has three components S1 , S2 , S3 . In S1 S0x and S0y re- case, CFL ¼ 0.6 is adopted to prevent unrealistic water surface
present the bottom slope evaluated along the coordinate axes, in oscillations near the dam breach.
S2 Sfx and Sfy are the friction slope along the coordinate axes A cell is considered wet when the water depth is greater than
evaluated according to Manning’s formula, in S3 p represents 1 μm. To prevent instabilities due to the dry-wet interface, the bot-
the rainfall intensity that fell directly on the surface of the Ortiglieto tom slope source term, S1 , is redefined balancing numerical fluxes
reservoir. The bottom slope source term is upwinded according to and the source term in order to prevent the nonphysical condition of
Bermúdez et al. (1998) whereas S2 and S3 source terms are solved a dry cell giving water to a wet one, which can happen for high
in an implicit way. bottom slopes (Brufau et al. 2002). A water volume redistribution
The system of Eq. (1) is solved via a finite volume technique is also applied to reduce the mass balance error induced by the mass
using an upwind first-order numerical scheme (Roe 1981) devel- added by the flux corrections (Brufau et al. 2004).
oped in the compact wave formulation (Murillo and Garcia Navarro ORSA2D was applied to real-world cases (Petaccia et al. 2010;
2010) Natale et al. 2008; Costabile et al. 2015a, 2015b; Morales-
Hernandez et al. 2016; Fenocchi et al. 2016) and is constantly
Z
Δt X
NE X 3
Δt updated.
Unþ1
i ¼ Uni − ððλ~ − α − βÞeÞ
~ m
i;k lk þ S2 dΩ ð3Þ The computational domain is almost 60 km2 wide and includes
Ai k¼1 m¼1 Ai Ω
the Ortiglieto reservoir. The critical-flow condition at the down-
stream boundary does not interfere with the results in the area
where Δt = integration time step; Ai = area of the element i; NE = of interest. The computational grid is unstructured and made of
edge number of the ith element; lk ¼ kth side length; and α and 51,095 elements. It was developed from a 20 × 20-m digital
β = upwind coefficients for fluxes and source terms (Bermúdez elevation model distributed by the Italian Military Geographic
et al. 1998). The eigenvalues ðλ~ − Þm
i;k of the Jacobian matrix, J, are
Institute (2020) integrated with the reservoir bathymetry deduced
defined at each edge, k, according to from the topographic survey added in the original documents of the
project. The computational grid was generated via the Surface–
1 ~ water Modeling System (SMS 12.1 version) produced by Boss
ðλ~ − Þm ~ m
i;k ¼ ðλ − jλjÞi;k ð4Þ International. The maximum side length of the cells is: 10 m for
2
the Ortiglieto reservoir area, 20 m for the Orba and Stura riverbeds,
and variable from 20 to 40 m in the remaining part of the domain.
where
Bridges and other topographical infrastructures such as roads
or railway lines were added to the DEM using historical photo-
~ 1 ¼ ðu~ · n þ cÞ
ðλÞ ~ i;k ; ~ 2 ¼ ðu~ · nÞ ;
ðλÞ graphs and historical maps. A fixed bed condition is considered.
i;k i;k i;k
~ 3 ¼ ðu~ · n − cÞ
ðλÞ ~ i;k ðu~ · nÞk ¼ ðunx þ vny Þk ð5Þ The model simulates the bare terrain without buildings or vegeta-
i;k
tion and does not account for the modifications due to the dam-
break wave propagation.
where u~ and v~ = averages of flow velocity along coordinate axes
(u and v, respectively); and c~ = average celerity. Averages are evalu-
ated according to Murillo and Garcia Navarro (2010) and nk is Results and Discussion
the unit outward vector normal to the side, lk , having nx and ny
components, as shown in Fig. 7. In Fig. 7, Aj represents the planar The simulation is divided into two successive scenarios. The first
area of the neighbor element. scenario considers the propagation of the flood wave released by

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Fig. 8. Discharge hydrograph released by the secondary dam
collapse—comparison of different collapse scenarios.
the Ortiglieto reservoir before the collapse of the auxiliary dam,
when the reservoir surface can still be assumed as horizontal: in this
case, the reservoir model can be applied, considering (1) the
inlet from the four contributing watersheds and the direct rainfall
over the reservoir surface; (2) the release from the spillways, the re-
lief conduit and the penstock; and (3) the discharge overtopping both
dams. Model results are compared with the observations in Fig. 6.
The second scenario simulates what happens after the Sella
Zerbino Dam breaks. In this case, the computational grid also in-
cludes the reservoir. The second scenario starts from an initial con-
dition given by the results of the previous scenario. The spillways
of the main dam continue to operate as long as allowed by the
elevation of the water in the reservoir.
A single Manning’s coefficient, n ¼ 0.04 m−1=3 s, was suffi-
cient to reproduce the event according to witnesses and flood marks
(Alfieri 1935; Bonaria 2013).
A structural analysis was performed to revise and explain the
reasons for the dam break (Petaccia et al. 2016a). Because the
sequence of the blocks’ removal is not documented, the different
scenarios of dam failure were simulated assuming that: (1) the fail-
ure began from the block on the left side; (2) any block fell off
instantaneously and completely; and (3) the delay time, tB , between
the collapse of two successive blocks did not depend on the block
height. The scenarios considered tB ¼ 0 (instantaneous dam break),
5, 10, and 20 min (Fig. 8).
When it was clear that the dam-break wave would have reached
the powerhouse apron and that there was no way of escape, the
technicians fled from the powerhouse. Only 12 s after the dam
break, the simulated dam-break wave reached the powerhouse
apron, confirming the testimonies. Its 3.5-m=s velocity and 0.5-m
depth would have overtaken those involved, leaving no escape
(USBR 1988; Karvonen et al. 2001). At the powerhouse no victims
were recorded. Four different scenarios are compared as shown in
Fig. 9. The scenario with tB ¼ 5 min allows enough time for those
at risk to evaluate the situation and reach a safer spot.
Because the apron was washed out by the wave generated by the
collapse of the first block, the slower collapse scenarios would not
allow any more time to escape. The peak of the dam-break wave
reduced to half before reaching the outskirts of Ovada, the main
town of the Orba valley.
Fig. 10 superimpose the contour lines of the simulated water
depths and the unit discharges with aerial photographs, at different
times. Points 2–9 represent the locations that were most damaged
by the dam-break wave.
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Fig. 9. Comparison of the different scenario results at the Molare
powerhouse.
Fig. 10. Maximum flooded area and location of the most damaged
areas. (Basemap courtesy of ESRI.)
The simulated dam-break wave reached Point 3 in Fig. 10 only
20 min after the dam break and swept away the railway bridge.
Point 6 indicates Ovada’s most damaged area with 73 deaths.
Houses hit by the dam-break wave collapsed due to their poor
structural resistance as they were old two-story brick houses with
no foundations. Buoyant wooden planks and roofs, which heaved
and disconnected from the walls, were swept away.
The industrial area on the right side of Ovada (Point 8 in
Fig. 10) was severely flooded. The railway bridge (Point 7 in
Fig. 10) crossing the Orba river immediately downstream of the
river junction was damaged but did not collapse because the
enlargement of the riverbed made the current reduce water depth
and velocity.
The bridge across the Stura river, indicated by Point 9 in Fig. 10,
collapsed by overturning toward the upstream side. The numerical
simulation shows that the bridge did not collapse due to the back-
water effect, rebutting several historical documents.
Various threshold criteria have been proposed to assess the
destructive capacity of the flow: the danger threshold is defined
in terms of water depth, h (m), flow velocity, u (m=s), or a combi-
nation of the two.
The Clausen criteria (L2 ) (Clausen and Clark 1990) is based on
empirical data from the Dale Dyke failure in Sheffield, England.
The remaining criteria refer to damage due to natural floods in
Oregon (CH2M Hill 1974), Ontario (McBean et al. 1998), the
United States (Black 1975), Australia (Dale et al. 2004), and
Germany (Kreibich et al. 2009).
As most of the published research (McBean et al. 1998; Kelman
and Spence 2004; Gallegos et al. 2012) deal with natural floods,
their criteria can be adopted to evaluate risk conditions for buildings
J. Hydraul. Eng.
 Table 2. Simulated maximum water depths and velocity and comparison with damage criteria
Municipality Point h (m) U (m=s) L2D =L1 L2D =L2 L2D =L3 L2D =L4 L2D =L5 L2D =L6 L2D =L7 L2D =L8
Molare 1 7.00 5.43 27.2 5.4 79.1 27.1 174.8 25.3 103.2 4.2
Molare 2 5.57 6.88 34.7 5.5 147.0 44.5 510.9 25.5 131.7 4.3
Molarea 3 12.66 4.18 — — — — — — — —
Ovada 4 4.02 3.92 8.1 2.3 18.8 7.3 25.9 10.5 30.9 1.8
Ovada 5 2.96 1.27 0.6 0.5 2.9 1.4 1.8 2.5 2.4 0.4
Ovada 6 3.30 6.12 16.3 2.9 55.9 18.1 153.1 13.5 61.8 2.2
Ovadaa 7 6.71 4.36 — — — — — — — —
Ovada 8 3.58 4.58 9.9 2.3 24.6 9.1 41.8 10.9 37.6 1.8
Ovadaa 9 12.11 7.77 — — — — — — — —
Note: Values for which the model results exceed the literature limits are indicated in bold.
a
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Concrete or steel frame bridges.

far from the dam location where the wave arrives partially damp- Lesson Learned
ened. The Development of Rescue Actions Based on Dam-Break
Flood Analysis (RESCDAM) report (Karvonen et al. 2001) pro- Updated data and evaluation procedures allow the issues to be
poses criteria to assess the risk condition for people and buildings answered by revisiting the historical event.
hit by a dam-break wave. The first question concerns what would have happened if the
Table 2 compares the flood characteristics and the safety limits reservoir had released the design discharge. Fig. 6 shows the results
for buildings shown in McBean et al. (1998), Kelman and Spence of the simulation in which all the spillways were working (Line B).
(2004), and Gallegos et al. (2012): L1 is the limit for the CH2M Both dams would have been overtopped with a delay of 20 min as
criteria (CH2M Hill 1974), L2 is the limit for the Clausen and compared to the historical event. The reservoir would have reached
Clark (1989), L3 is the limit for the 1-story Black criteria (Black an elevation of 326.7 m a.s.l. with the same delay. It can be con-
1975), L4 is the limit for the 2-story Black criteria (Black 1975), cluded that the tragic event was not due to malfunctioning of the
L5 is the limit proposed by Dale et al. (2004), L6 is the limit for the spillways or to mismanagement of the plant.
uh criteria and L7 is the limit for the hU 2 criteria proposed by During the trial the judge inquired as to what would happen
Kreibich et al. (2009), and L8 is the limit proposed by McBean if the dam did not collapse. The peak discharge released down-
et al. (1998). L2D indicates the parameter evaluated from ORSA2D stream of the secondary dam during the historical event reached
simulations. Points for which the literature limit is exceeded by 9,100 m3 =s. The peak discharge for the scenario without dam fail-
the model results are shown in bold. Concrete or steel frame ure would have been about 3,000 m3 =s. The scenario without the
bridges are also identified although the threshold criteria are not Ortiglieto reservoir shows a discharge of 3,250 m3 =s at the flood
meaningful. peak (Fig. 11).
The L5 criteria by Dale et al. (2004) are inadequate for our ap- Although the differences in water depths between the two
plications because the damage criteria are evaluated mainly by the scenarios–with and without collapse–decrease going downstream,
water depth. in the latter case the flood wave would have been less destructive.
In the framework of the RESCDAM project (Karvonen et al. Moreover, the inhabitants, being used to natural floods, would
2001) experimental tests were performed with human subjects to have more likely evaluated the impending danger and reached
define the limits for a safe rescue action in the case of a dam-break safety.
flood. The tests’ results were compared with the experimental study Table 3 gives a comparison of maximum water depths and
of Colorado State University (Abt et al. 1989) to give the approxi- velocity calculated by ORSA2D for the scenario without the dam
mate limits of human safety in flowing water. The model shows that collapse, to the threshold limits proposed previously.
the dynamic thrust of the flow overcomes the resistance of human
bodies everywhere.
The powerhouse was constructed out of reinforced concrete
(Fig. 9). Historical photographs show that the dam-break wave
destroyed the building whereas the turbines and the penstock
remained in place. At that location, the dam-break wave had de-
structive characteristics: the maximum hydrodynamic force com-
puted by ORSA2D largely overcomes the structural resistance of
an industrial building.
The estimated number of inhabitants of Molare and Ovada was
between 350 and 400. Assuming that approximately 100 people
were not in the area when the dam failed, it is assumed that those
that remained were mostly women and babies. Ninety-seven
victims were found between Ovada and Molare. The equation pro-
posed by DeKay and McClelland (1993) estimates a loss of lives
(LOL) between 73 and 81 in the absence of any warning system.
An alarm given 15 min in advance would have reduced the number
Fig. 11. Discharge hydrographs upstream of the powerhouse—
of casualties to 35/38.
comparison of dam break, without dam break, and natural flood
The US Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) formula (DeKay and
scenarios.
McClelland 1993) would estimate between 125 and 150 victims.

© ASCE 05020005-8 J. Hydraul. Eng.

J. Hydraul. Eng., 2020, 146(8): 05020005

 Table 3. Maximum water depths and velocity simulated for the natural flood scenario and comparison with damage criteria
Municipality Point hour (min) U (m=s) L2D =L1 L2D =L2 L2D =L3 L2D =L4 L2D =L5 L2D =L6 L2D =L7 L2D =L8
Molare 1 2.00 4.68 5.8 1.3 14.5 5.3 25.4 6.2 21.9 1.0
Molare 2 2.24 5.56 9.1 1.8 27.3 9.3 62.9 8.3 34.6 1.4
Molarea 3 8.82 4.16 — — — — — — — —
Ovada 4 2.84 2.39 2.1 1.0 5.4 2.4 4.6 4.5 8.1 0.8
Ovada 5 1.39 0.73 0.1 0.1 1.0 0.5 0.5 0.7 0.4 0.1
Ovada 6 0.80 0.98 0.1 0.1 0.7 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.4 0.1
Ovadaa 7 6.15 3.44 — — — — — — — —
Ovada 8 2.97 4.57 8.2 1.9 20.2 7.5 34.2 9.0 31.0 1.5
Ovadaa 9 11.63 7.77 — — — — — — — —
Note: Bold number refer to points where the literature limit is exceeded.
a
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Concrete or steel frame bridges.

Comparing the data given in Tables 2 and 3 the destructive
power of the dam-break wave is evident, especially at Point 1
(powerhouse) and Point 6 (Ovada town).
During the criminal trail the defense counselors tried to demon-
strate that the rainfall event was exceptional and unforeseeable, and
the acquittal was based on this statement. The authors evaluated the
return period of the event analyzing statistically the daily rainfall
series recorded at the Belforte, Monferrato, Lavignina Centrale,
Lavignina Lago, Masone, Rossiglione, Ovada, Piancastagna, and
Piampaludo stations shown in Fig. 5.
The skewness coefficient of the rainfall data recorded in the four
stations close to the crest (Lavignina Centrale, Lavignina Lago,
Masone, and Piampaludo in Fig. 5) is very high and it is signifi-
cantly related to the coefficient of variation. Skewness and variation
coefficient of the samples recorded in the gauging stations indicated
by squares in Fig. 5 are smaller but are still related. This statistical
character is described by the lognormal distribution (Benjamin and
Cornell 1970).
The Piampaludo and Piancastagna gauging stations describe the
intense rainfall regime on the Orba basin fairly well. From the stat-
istical analysis of their records the return period of the August 13,
1935, rainfall at the Piampaludo and Piancastagna gauging stations
is estimated to be 235 and 150 years, respectively.
The storm event on the upper Stura and Gorzente basins had the
same intensity. The return period of the rainfall registered that day
at the Masone, Rossiglione, and Lavagnina stations was 115, 130,
and 245 years, respectively. In fact, the event was not exceptional.
The laws of the time required the dam to be protected against the
maximum flood whose exceptionality had to be demonstrated by
the hydrological study attached to the project. The vagueness of the
norm and the limited data samples available allowed the defense to
state that the flood of August 13 was exceptional.
remarkably lower than the 1935 flood. The position of the secon-
dary dam, located over a fault, caused the tragic event.
This tragedy demonstrates that a correct education about risk is
relevant for the safety of the population.
At the powerhouse, where the wave maintained its maximum
power, there were no victims because the technicians, aware of
the risk, fled to a safer place even with only a few minutes warning.
Other individuals working downstream of the powerhouse did not
give credence to the alarm and were swept away by the force of
the wave.
The general population was not able to evaluate the destructive
power of the dam-break wave as compared to a natural flood. They
repaired the roofs of their houses, as they were used to when the
Orba river flooded the town of Ovada, which had happened four
times in the previous 40 years. These nonstructural measures were
self-defeating in that case. The words of the survivors, including
“houses opened as books” and “died those who were not scared
of the river” perfectly depict this situation.
In conclusion, a correct risk education and self-defense proce-
dures would have saved several lives.
In Italy a review of all of the existing big dams has been con-
ducted. Unfortunately, other dams are in conditions similar to the
Sella Zerbino Dam. Some of them were dismissed for a spillway
design deficit (Petaccia and Natale 2013b) but the problem still ex-
ists. The proof that a design error was made for the Sella Zerbino
Dam is the fact that the main dam (Bric Zerbino) did not collapse,
even if it was overtopped like the Sella Zerbino Dam. If a dam is
well designed, it can resist an extraordinary and unexpected event
without breaking (Manenti et al. 2016).
Data Availability Statement

All data, models, or code generated or used during the study are
Conclusions available from the corresponding author by request.

This study shows how a careful and accurate numerical simulation

allows previous events to be put in the correct context.
The rainfall intensity of August 13, 1935, event was high but
significantly lower than any prudent design value for dam spill-
ways. The knowledge and understating of the hydrologic phenom-
ena, more limited at the time, should have suggested the designers
apply a more conservative and wiser attitude in designing both the
dam and the spillways (Petaccia et al. 2016a).
Comparing data given in Tables 2 and 3 it can be concluded that
the disaster should be attributed to the dam failure and not to the
exceptional rainfall event. Fig. 11 strengthens this statement. The
collapse of the secondary dam was due to its overtopping, which
was caused by the design of the spillways whose capacity was
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the former Registro Italiano Dighe
(RID) (the national institution controlling dam safety and reservoir
operation, disbanded in 2006) and Vittorio Bonaria for providing
data for the Molare plant and Ortiglieto reservoir.
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