News in Science

Earthquake scientists fear Italian trial

Shakey ground An Australian seismologist says this week's trial of Italian scientists for failing to warn of a devastating earthquake could muzzle experts from sharing their knowledge in the future.

A government official and six scientists, including Dr Enzo Boschi, the former director of Italy's prestigious National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology, are accused of manslaughter in a case that some see as an unfair indictment of science.

The defendants are on trial for giving overly reassuring information in the lead up to the L'Aquila earthquake, which killed more than 300 people in central Italy in 2009.

According to the indictment, the seven are suspected "of having provided an approximative, generic and ineffective assessment of seismic activity risks as well as incomplete, imprecise and contradictory information."

Prosecutors say residents around the city of L'Aquila in the mountainous Abruzzo region should have been warned to flee their homes in the days before the quake.

The injured parties are asking for 50 million euros in damages.

But engineering seismologist, Dr Kevin McCue, a spokesperson for the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society, says the case doesn't make sense because it's not possible to predict quakes.

"There's no way anybody can give a warning," he says. "We don't know enough about the earthquake process."

"In my humble opinion, earthquakes are chaotic processes and therefore they are inherently unpredictable."

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 analysed data from the low-magnitude tremors and determined that the activity was not a prelude to a major earthquake.

McCue defends the Italian scientists saying "swarms" of small earthquakes or tremors are common and not generally a prelude to a large earthquake.

"It's very unusual that you have a large earthquake following a swarm, which is what did happen this time," he says.

Building codes

McCue says the Italian scientists said it was unlikely that a destructive earthquake could happen in the short term but that the possibility could not be totally excluded.

And, he adds, Boschi and others had published an earthquake hazard map that showed the city of L'Aquila was a high risk area and there should be stricter enforcement of anti-seismic measures, particularly regarding building construction.

"The real issue is the area had been zoned, there was a requirement that the houses be built according to the building code and there was a requirement that the old houses be strengthened," says McCue. "But nobody did anything."

Interestingly, an Italian civil servant was sued in 1985 for advising people to leave their homes following a swarm of earthquakes, according to McCue.

"It cost a lot of money, there was chaos and the earthquake didn't happen and he was sued because he'd put out a false warning," says McCue.

Risky science

McCue says even the development of earthquake hazard maps is a "very inexact science".

This is demonstrated by that fact that one of Australia's biggest earthquakes happened in Tennant Creek in 1988, in an area that had one of the lowest hazard ratings on the map.

"We are all taking a risk," he says.

"This is the concept I don't think the public understands."

McCue says 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."