Scientists on trial for failing to predict Italian quake

The 6.3 magnitude earthquake devastated the city in central Italy. The prosecution alleges that the scientists, including Gian Michele Calvi, president of the European Centre for Training and Research in Earthquake Engineering, and one government official gave falsely reassuring statements about the likelihood of a quake despite hundreds of tremors over several months.

The defence says that there is no way to predict major earthquakes.

The prosecutors accuse the seven defendents of “negligence and imprudence”, as well as having given only “an approximate, generic and ineffective assessment of seismic activity risks as well as incomplete, imprecise and contradictory information”.

The accused include some of Italy’s most well-respected geophysicists. They face up to 15 years in jail as well as potentially having to pay more than £19m in damages to victims in a separate civil case if they are found guilty.

“We are seeking justice,” declared prosecutor Alfredo Rossini as he entered court.

“Years of research, much of it conducted by distinguished seismologists in your own country, have demonstrated that there is no accepted scientific method for earthquake prediction that can be reliably used to warn citizens of an impending disaster”

Letter to the President of Italy from the American Association for the Advancement of Science

“chilling impact”

The seven defendants were members of an Italian government panel called the Serious Risks Commission, whose job was to assess the risk of an earthquake occurring following months of low-level tremors in the region.

Six days before the earthquake struck, the commission held a meeting. The minutes of that record Enzo Bosci, who is a former president of the National Institute of Geophysics, as saying that just because a number of small tremors had happened this did not mean a major earthquake could be imminent.

The head of the commission, Francisco Barberi, was also reported as concluding there was “no reason to believe that a series of low-level tremors was a precursor to a larger event”.

Last year 5,000 US scientists wrote to the Italian President Giorgio Napolitano in support of the seismologists. The letter called the charges “unfair and naive” and called on the Italian government to work with scientists and help prevent the trial having a “chilling” impact on research.