The Belìce Valley: 57 Years After the Earthquake, Broken Promises and a Perpetually Postponed Future

 Even today, a chilling wind blows through the hills and the Valley of Disaster, reminiscent of the one 57 years ago, on the night between January 14 and 15, 1968, when an earthquake, although not particularly strong in magnitude, caused death and destruction across entire towns in a vast area of western Sicily.

The quake during Sunday lunch had already raised the alarm, prompting half of Salemi’s residents to abandon their homes. Those fortunate enough sought refuge in countryside homes, while others huddled around makeshift fires to combat the freezing temperatures and falling snow, which, indifferent to the seismic disaster, began to cover everything and everyone.

The next morning, stories emerged of an entire neighborhood that had collapsed and numerous deaths. There were even tales of geysers spewing from sudden craters that had appeared in the earth.

At Salemi’s gates, the lifeless body of a man was found lying in the mud and snow, his face covered in blood. No one tended to the corpse, not even the carabinieri, preoccupied with other emergencies. Everyone, after all, was consumed with finding shelter, wrapped in blankets against the biting cold and relentless snow.

Can we assess the damage after more than half a century?

One of the few undeniable outcomes of the quake seems to be the newfound notoriety of the Valle del Belìce — a name previously unknown even to locals, recognized only by geographers and cartographers.

Another indisputable fact is the determination, even at a conference held in Salaparuta, to emphasize that the tonic accent in "Belìce" must fall on the “ì” rather than the “e,” as stubbornly mispronounced by various TV correspondents.

Is this mere nitpicking? Perhaps. But are we not in Pirandello’s homeland?

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before the term Valle del Belìce took on a negative connotation, becoming synonymous with corruption, waste, failed politics, broken promises, and severe inefficiencies.

Fifty years of unfulfilled government promises would require an entire dossier to list them all. Here, we’ll recall some of the most glaring examples. A cascade of disappointments fell upon a population that had lived for centuries on the empire’s periphery and then spent decades in tent camps and shantytowns after the quake, always offering their votes in exchange for empty promises.

The most infamous of these promises, predating Cetto La Qualunque’s "More jobs for all!" by thirty years, was the so-called Colombo package, named after Emilio Colombo, the prime minister at the time.

Colombo himself visited Salemi, a Christian Democratic stronghold under the Salvo cousins. From a grand stage paradoxically erected before the ruins of a cathedral—destroyed not by the quake but by an ill-informed public works project—he announced to a crowded Piazza Alicia the creation of 8,400 new jobs for the Belìce. "Finally, we exist," thought many.

But those jobs never materialized, not even a fraction. No factories for steel rods or profiles were built, as had been promised. Instead, emigration — already a long-standing trend since the late 1800s — only intensified, affecting even the intellectual strata of society.

The unfulfilled promises and the legacy of waste

In the early years after the quake, anniversaries were marked by protests, fueling hopes built on shaky ground, like the site of the new Gibellina. But as time passed, these events devolved into stale rituals filled with empty rhetoric and even self-congratulatory displays.

At the recent commemorative event titled Perspectives for Development in the Valle del Belìce, held in Santa Ninfa’s council chamber, politicians of opposing factions gathered, united in their grim acknowledgment: the reconstruction remains incomplete, the valley’s depopulation is accelerating, infrastructure gaps are widening, and agriculture is in decline despite the presence of large cooperative wineries.

After three generations, the territory continues to question its development prospects. Politicians, self-proclaimed experts, local administrators, and even figures from the past continue to repeat the tired narrative that Belìce has been unfairly accused of squandering public funds, portraying itself as a victim of institutional prejudice.

This year’s commemoration only underscored the desolation of the situation. A regional assessor, instead of presenting a list of actionable projects, merely stated that it was time to "act concretely." Meanwhile, a mayor rhetorically asked, “How can we combat depopulation when the average household size is just 2.05 people, and so many homes stand empty?”

Another participant suggested looking to Japanese kintsugi, the art of repairing broken objects with gold powder, as inspiration. However, it remains unclear what the broken objects are and what the "gold powder" might represent.

A future perpetually postponed

This meeting once again highlighted the obvious: Valle del Belìce can no longer wait. After 57 years, it’s necessary not only to complete reconstruction but also to create opportunities for young people, investors, and tourists.

A land perpetually looking to the future, the valley seems trapped in an eternal present, governed by the infamous adage of Sicilian politics: problems are not solved; they are managed.