It was 1:28 p.m. on 14 January 1968
Sicily_Gibellina_Il Cretto di Burri
It was 1:28 p.m. on 14 January 1968. Families were gathered for lunch when the first earthquake struck, shaking the ground beneath Montevago, Gibellina, Salaparuta and Poggioreale. Then came the second tremor, at 2:15 p.m., which was so strong that it was felt even in Palermo and Trapani. The one that struck at 4:48 p.m. was merciless for Gibellina, Menfi, Montevago, Partanna, Poggioreale, Salaparuta, Salemi, Santa Margherita di Belice and Santa Ninfa.
The night was even worse: one tremor at 2.33 a.m., another half an hour later.
A purgatory began that lasted until September and recorded 345 tremors. The Belice Valley and its nine villages were no longer the places depicted in the pages of Giuseppe Tommasi di Lampedusa. Fifty years after Belice, and its failed, delayed or partial reconstruction, it is the story of a defeat.
Like a shroud, a white Burri labyrinth covers the ruins of old Gibellina: 80,000 square metres of concrete retrace the streets and alleys of the old town. The modernity of the concrete freezes memory, stigmatises human failure and embraces the pain of the victims.
Walking through those alleys means feeling the sadness of a city destroyed and the deaths caused by the earthquake. Moreover, the work does not violate the surrounding landscape; on the contrary, it almost seems to complete it. Behind all this are ten wind turbines, a symbol of green technology that does not consume the planet’s resources.
Beneath the surface remains a laceration, a wound in the material. This is what happens in the labyrinth of the great cretto where the town is lost, but the path is real, as in an afterlife of Gibellina. It is a landscape suspended in time.
Its failure to be rebuilt, or its late or partial reconstruction, is the narrative of a defeat.
