Belice earthquake

I danni causati dal terremoto che nella notte tra il 14 e il 15 gennaio del 1968 colpì la Valle del Belice

In 1968 Italy suffers the first major emergency of the post-war period. In the night between 14 and 15 January a violent earthquake of magnitude 6.5 strikes western Sicily and particularly the provinces of Palermo, Trapani and Agrigento. The Belice Valley is wasted. Gibellina, Montevago, Poggioreale and Salaparuta are razed to the ground. Seriously damaged also Menfi, Partanna, Camporeale, Chiusa Scafani, Contessa Entellina, Sciacca, Santa Ninfa, Salemi, Vita, Calatafimi and Santa Margherita del Belice.

The damage is enormous: 296 people died, more than a thousand were injured and almost 100 thousand lost their homes. The catastrophe highlights the weakness of the dwellings, unable to support the shocks. The rural building patrimony suffers irreparable damages, with serious repercussions on the almost exclusively agricultural economy of the territory. Thus began a long period of seismic activity which ended a year later, in February 1969. There were many shocks, the strongest of which were between the 14th and 25th of January 1968 when - with the rescue teams still working among the rubble - a violent shock caused the death of a firefighter and further damage between Palermo and Sciacca.

The difficult management of the emergency, the delays in relief, the homeless forced to move: the Belice earthquake heavily marks the Italian post-war history and thousands of families see their lives changed forever. After the first dramatic months, the earthquake victims of Belice arrive in Rome to express their views and there is only one voice: reconstruction. On March 2, 1968, earthquake victims and students meet in Piazza Colonna, in front of Parliament, and ask Prime Minister Aldo Moro for an appropriate law for the development of the Belice Valley.

That of Belice will be a very long reconstruction, the inhabited centers are moved far from the affected places without really taking into account the needs of life and work of the residents of the area. However, thanks to the period of great human and cultural ferment, the Belice becomes an open-air laboratory and the city of Gibellina is reconstructed thanks to the contribution of intellectuals and artists such as Sciascia, Consagra, Schifano, Pomodoro, Paladino.

The "Grande Cretto" of Alberto Burri is a powerful symbol of this intervention. The contemporary work, among the greatest in the world, rises on the rubble of Gibellina and is " frozen" by the artist with cement. A white robe, which covers and at the same time protects the city destroyed by the earthquake and the memory of its people.

Photo: Collapse caused by the earthquake of January 14, 1968 in the Belice Valley in western Sicily / National Fire Department