'Scientists should get four years for failing to predict L'Aquila earthquake'
Prosecutors in Italy have called for a group of scientists to be sent to prison for four years each for allegedly failing to give adequate warning of the L'Aquila earthquake in 2009 that killed 309 people and injured hundreds more.
Nuns walk past the ruins of a building after the earthquake on April 6, 2009 in L'Aquila, Italy Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES
By Nick Squires, Rome
3:32PM BST 26 Sep 2012
The trial of the seven experts has proved immensely controversial, with the international scientific community saying that earthquakes cannot be predicted and that the experts are being made scapegoats for an unforeseen natural disaster.
But critics say that by downplaying the risks, they consigned hundreds of people to their deaths when the quake struck at 3.32am on April 6, 2009, reducing centuries-old buildings as well as modern apartment blocks to dust.
In calling for the jail sentences, prosecutors accused the experts of offering "an incomplete, inept, unsuitable and criminally mistaken analysis" of the dozens of tremors which rattled the mountain city in the days before the massive quake.
The geologists and volcanologists were members of a special committee on natural disasters which held an emergency meeting in L'Aquila on May 31, 2009 – six days before the Italian city and surrounding villages were devastated by the 6.3 magnitude quake.
They ruled that it was impossible to determine whether the tremors would be followed by a large quake, in a judgment which reassured the residents of the city in the Apennines.
But the advice they issued was described by Fabio Picuti, a prosecutor in the trial, as "banal, useless, self-contradictory and mistaken." The court heard that Enzo Boschi, a member of the panel and a former director of the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology, allegedly told concerned locals: "I would reject (the possibility) of an earthquake."
Mr Picuti, the prosecutor, said: "People died because of this phrase."
Prosecutors claim that clearer information would have allowed the inhabitants of the city, the capital of the Abruzzo region, to evaluate the threat and decide whether to evacuate.
After the main earthquake struck, L'Aquila and the surrounding area was shaken by another 250 powerful aftershocks within 48 hours.
The quake caused damage worth an estimated 10 billion euros, with large parts of L'Aquila still abandoned and resembling a ghost town.
The trial started in Sept 2011 and is expected to finish next month.
Defence lawyers will present their final arguments on October 9 and 10.
Scientists around the world have criticised the trial as unjust, saying that current technology does not allow the prediction of quakes.
Last year more than 5,000 scientists sent an open letter sent to Giorgio Napolitano, Italy's president, criticising the trial.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science also expressed its concern over the trial, saying that the charges had "no merit".
"The charges against these scientists are both unfair and naive," the association said in a letter to President Napolitano.
It was mistaken to think that the scientists could have alerted the people of L'Aquila to the possibility of an earthquake, the association said.
"There is no way they could have done that credibly."
