Catastrophic stars
Project by: Martina PoschiavinIntroductionThe difference between reality and representation is a fine line that can be distinguished only by analyzing carefully the images. This project called Catastrophic stars is a fragmentation of pictures from reality, thanks to the kaleidoscope effect. But this playful effect has a change of expectation for the viewer.
Vajont dam October 9, 1963
On October 9, 1963, at 10.39 p.m., a landslide that extended for more than 2 kilometres, with approximately 270 cubic metres of earth and rocks, came off Mount Toc (Pordenone, Italy). As the landslide hit the dam, it created three gigantic waves. The first hit the village of Casso; the second destroyed parts of Erto. The third wave, with an estimated volume of 50 million cubic metres of water, headed beyond the Vajont Dam, towards Longarone. When it reached the lake, the wave measured 250 metres in height. As it reached the bottom of the valley, it measured 30 metres. The small town of Longarone was swept away, and only the small town-hall and a few houses, in the northern part of the town, managed to survive. That night, 1,917 people died.
Chernobyl April 26, 1986
The accident at the Chernobyl (Ukraine) nuclear power station in the Soviet Union is the worst disaster in the history of nuclear power generation. On April 25. - 26. 1986, technicians attempted a poorly designed experiment, causing the chain reaction in the core to go out of control. The reactor’s lid was blown off, and large amounts of radioactive material were released into the atmosphere. A partial meltdown of the core also occurred. A cover-up was attempted, but, after Swedish monitoring stations reported abnormally high levels of wind-transported radioactivity, the Soviet government admitted the truth. As many as 49 people may have died in the initial explosions. Beyond these immediate deaths, several thousand radiation-induced illnesses and cancer deaths were expected in the long term. The incident set off an international outcry over the dangers posed by radioactive emissions.
Bangladesh
November 12, 1970
Ganges-Brahmaputra delta cyclone, also called Bhola cyclone, catastrophic tropical cyclone that struck East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) on November 12, 1970, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the densely populated Ganges-Brahmaputra delta. Even though it was not ranked in the top category of cyclone intensity scales, it was perhaps the deadliest tropical cyclone in recorded history and one of the greatest natural disasters. The cyclone formed over the Bay of Bengal on November 8, 1970. After reaching its peak wind speed of 185 km per hour, it made landfall on the coast of East Pakistan on November 12. The cyclone was accompanied by a storm surge (a rapid elevation of sea level) that flooded the low-lying region. An estimated 300,000 to 500,000 residents were killed, mostly through drowning, and entire villages were wiped out.
New York
September 11, 2001
“9/11” is shorthand for four coordinated terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group, that occurred on the morning of September 11, 2001. Nineteen terrorists from al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial airplanes, deliberately crashing two of the planes into the upper floors of the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center complex and a third plane into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The Twin Towers ultimately collapsed because of the damage sustained from the impacts and the resulting fires. After learning about the other attacks, passengers on the fourth hijacked plane, Flight 93, fought back, and the plane was crashed into an empty field in western Pennsylvania about 20 minutes by air from Washington, D.C. The attacks killed 2,977 people from 93 nations: 2,753 people were killed in New York; 184 people were killed at the Pentagon; and 40 people were killed on Flight 93.
Andaman Coast December 26, 2004
The tsunami that struck Thailand on 26 December 2004 was the greatest natural disaster in the country’s history. It left in its wake unprecedented damage and destruction. The tsunami affected six provinces along the Andaman Coast of Thailand, leaving more than 8,000 dead, a third of them foreigners. It impacted 407 villages, and completely destroyed 47, including well-known tourist destinations. Vulnerable fishing communities, ethnic groups, migrant workers and workers in the tourism industry bore the brunt of the disaster; communities were destroyed and livelihoods lost. Children suffered the loss of parents or guardians, and survivors were left to cope with the psychological trauma of the disaster.
United States August 23-31, 2005
Hurricane Katrina (August 2005) became a large and extremely powerful hurricane that caused enormous destruction and significant loss of life. It is the costliest hurricane to ever hit the United States, surpassing the record previously held by Hurricane Andrew from 1992. In all, Hurricane Katrina was responsible for 1,833 fatalities
Haiti January 12, 2010
In 2010 in Haiti an earthquake occurred. The magnitude-7.0 earthquake hit near Port-au-Prince on January 12 and was followed by a series of aftershocks that continued for the next several days. Much of the city was reduced to rubble, and the surrounding region was devastated. According to the Haitian government, more than 300,000 people died, though other estimates were considerably smaller. More than one million were left homeless. Haiti, already beset by a strained and inadequate infrastructure, was ill-prepared to deal with the crisis, and a public-health emergency ensued, which included an outbreak of cholera. A multiyear international relief effort provided aid.
Tōhoku March 11, 2011
On March 11, 2011, Japan experienced the strongest earthquake in its recorded history. The earthquake struck below the North Pacific Ocean, 130 kilometers (81 miles) east of Sendai, the largest city in the Tohoku region, a northern part of the island of Honshu. The Tohoku earthquake caused a tsunami. The Tohoku tsunami produced waves up to 40 meters (132 feet) high, More than 450,000 people became homeless as a result of the tsunami. More than 15,500 people died. In addition to the thousands of destroyed homes, businesses, roads, and railways, the tsunami caused the meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
Fukushima March 11, 2011
The 9.0-magnitude quake was so forceful it shifted the Earth off its axis. It triggered a tsunami which swept over the main island of Honshu, killing more than 18,000 people and wiping entire towns off the map. At the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the gigantic wave surged over defenses and flooded the reactors, sparking a major disaster. Authorities set up an exclusion zone which grew larger and larger as radiation leaked from the plant, forcing more than 150,000 people to evacuate from the area.
North Italy October 28, 2018
On the night of 28th October 2018, Italy was swept by an exceptional storm. As rivers were swollen by heavy rain, a stark, relentless wind kept blowing in the mountains of the Northeast. When, days later, the sky cleared up, the inhabitants couldn’t believe their eyes: their woods, making the once celebrated landscapes of the Dolomites, were gone. More than ten million trees were broken in half, uprooted, sharply cut, sometimes cast far away. The storm, soon named Vaia, had destroyed 8.7 million cubic meters of forest, almost tenfold the destruction brought by the previous worst recorded windstorm, in 1966. Yet, if compared with other European storms, Vaia is far from exceptional in size.
Australia
June 2019 - March 2020
The first major bushfires began even before the official arrival of spring in June and then new out-of-control fires sprung up at the beginning of Sept. 2019. The fire situation worsened significantly at the beginning of November 2019 with increasing temperatures and a prolonged drought. In mid-January 2020, a wave of heavy rain finally brought relief in some areas hit by bushfires but was nowhere near sufficient to extinguish the fires. It did provide a respite for firefighters in some areas who had seen only occasional breaks in the weather in the previous months. Hotter temperatures, drought and high winds escalated the crisis again over the first weekend in February. In mid-February an extremely heavy rainstorm allowed firefighters to contain all of the fires in New South Wales, although fires continued to burn in Victoria. All of the fires were either extinguished or contained by March 4, 2020 –nine months after the first ones began to burn.
Beirut
August 4, 2020
The powerful blast, caused by a stockpile of ammonium nitrate in a port warehouse, occurred on 4 August 2020 and killed more than 200 people while decimating a vast swath of the Lebanese capital. The explosion destroyed 77,000 apartments, wounded 7,000 people, displaced over 300,000 more, at least 80,000 of which were children.
