L’Année est 1959 : À Fréjus, le Barrage a Libéré une Vague dans la Nuit

The Year Is 1959: In Fréjus, the Dam Unleashed a Wave in the Night On December 2, 1959, at 9:13 p.m., the Malpasset Dam collapsed above the Reyran Valley. In a matter of moments, a mass of water of tens of millions of cubic meters rushed towards Fréjus, flooding farmland, cutting off roads, and transforming the night into one of the greatest civil disasters of 20th-century France. But the story of Malpasset does not begin with the wave. It begins with a modern structure, designed to irrigate the Var region, support its development, and control an unpredictable waterway. An elegant arch dam, an immense reservoir, weeks of rain, and, beneath the left bank, a geological reality that the knowledge of the time had not yet allowed us to fully understand. This historical documentary revisits the construction of the Malpasset Dam, the exceptional rise in water levels, the collapse of the arch, the floodwaters flowing through the valley to Fréjus, and the subsequent investigations. Without gratuitous spectacle or graphic violence, the narrative focuses on the sites, the objects, the roads, the farmland, and the traces left by a disaster whose official death toll stands at 423 and nearly 7,000 people affected. Even today, the immense concrete blocks scattered throughout the Reyran Gorge bear witness to that night. The reservoir has disappeared. The valley has regained its calm. But in Fréjus, 9:13 p.m. has never been an ordinary time. Subscribe to The Dark Year to discover other forgotten, tragic, or little-known episodes in French history. In your opinion, what makes Malpasset so significant: the violence of the wave or the fact that a structure associated with progress could collapse in a matter of seconds? #Malpasset #Frejus1959 #FrenchHistory #HistoricalDisaster #TheDarkYear