Earthquake prosecution does not make sense: Australian experts

Earthquake prosecution does not make sense: Australian experts

The prosecution of the six Italian scientists for manslaughter over Italy's L'Aquila earthquake in 2009 is likely to silence experts from openly communicate with the public in the future, Australian experts warned on Friday.

Six leading Italian scientists and one government official are standing trial for manslaughter for alleged negligence that led to the deaths of over 300 people when a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck the Italian city of L'Aquila in March 2009.

Dr Kevin McCue, a spokesperson for the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society, said the case does not make sense because it is not possible to predict earthquakes.

According to Professor Paul Somerville, Deputy Director of Risk Frontiers at Australia's Macquarie University, the prosecution of the scientists, especially if it is successful, is likely to imperil the very need that this incident has highlighted: for open and clear communication between the scientists and the public.

"In a further irony, no action has yet been taken against the engineers who designed modern buildings that collapsed and caused fatalities, or the government officials who were responsible for enforcing building code compliance," he told Xinhua in an email note.

"It has occurred to some observers that the local government officials may be scapegoating the scientists to avoid prosecution themselves."

The defendants in the Italian trial were members of a panel that had met six days before the April 6 quake, to assess risks after hundreds of tremors had shaken the medieval university city. At that meeting, a committee analyzed data from the low-magnitude tremors and determined that the activity was not a prelude to a major earthquake.

However, Professor Somerville defended the scientists saying that the government's objective in holding the meeting was to debunk unreliable but alarming earthquake predictions that were being made by L'Aquila resident Giampaolo Giuliani, who is not a seismologist.

"The scientists were distracted in this direction instead of focusing on information about earthquake risk that the citizens needed," he said.

"Further, it appears that the scientists found themselves answering questions (during the meeting) about deterministic prediction of earthquakes (which they acknowledge is not currently possible) instead of probabilistic forecasting of earthquakes (which they can do)."

Dr McCue also pointed out that an Italian civil servant was sued in 1985 for advising people to leave their homes following a swarm of earthquake, and that fear of being sued could scare off seismologists from developing earthquake hazard maps and advising on building codes, unless they are indemnified by the government.

"Given the limited knowledge we do our best, but maybe that's not enough for the public. And if they are willing to sue us, then we won't be doing it at all," McCue said.

Following the announcement of the trial in May, Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) published a letter of support for the scientists, signed by over 5,000 researchers worldwide, including 77 Australians.

The letter said the scientific community involved in earthquake science urges the Italian government, local authorities and decision makers in general, to be proactive in establishing and carrying out local and national programs to support earthquake preparedness and risk mitigation, rather than prosecuting scientists for failing to do something they cannot do yet, as to predict earthquakes.

Editor: Wang Guanqun

English.news.cn   2011-09-23 16:54:55 FeedbackPrintRSS
by Vienna Ma

CANBERRA, Sept. 23 (Xinhua)