'No warning' 2009 Italy quake experts in court

Seven scientists and other experts went on trial on manslaughter charges today for allegedly failing to sufficiently warn residents before a devastating earthquake that killed more than 300 people in central Italy in 2009.

The case is being closely watched by seismologists around the globe who insist it is impossible to predict earthquakes.

They say seismologists will be discouraged from issuing any advice at all if they fear legal retaliation.

Last year, about 5,200 international researchers signed a petition supporting their Italian colleagues and the Seismological Society of America wrote to Italy’s president expressing concern about what it called an unprecedented legal attack on science.

The seven defendants are accused of giving “inexact, incomplete and contradictory information” about whether smaller tremors felt by L’Aquila residents in the six months before the April 6, 2009 quake should have constituted grounds for a quake warning.

“We all know well that earthquakes cannot be predicted. This is not in the point here,” said Vincenzo Vittorini, a relative of a victim, who attended the Rome trial.

Rather, he said, because of the failure of the scientists to say a significant quake could be possible, victims and their relatives missed a chance to take preventative measures.

Prosecutors focused on a memo issued after a March 31, 2009 meeting of the Great Risks commission which was called because of mounting concerns about the months of seismic activity in the region.

According to the commission’s memo – issued one week before the big quake – the experts concluded that it was “improbable” that there would be a major quake though it added that one could not be excluded.

Commission members also gave largely reassuring interviews to local media after the meeting which “persuaded the victims to stay at home,” the indictment said.

The defendants’ lawyers have insisted on their clients’ innocence and stressed the impossibility of predicting quakes.

The 6.3-magnitude quake killed 308 people in and around the medieval town of L’Aquila, which was largely reduced to rubble. Thousands of survivors lived in tent camps or temporary housing for months.

Today’s hearing was largely taken up with procedural details.

The plaintiffs are seeking some €50m in damages.

The judge set the next hearing for October 1.