Six scientists are set to go on trial in Italy charged with failing to predict the L'Aquila earthquake that killed 309 people in 2009.

The scientists, and one official, are charged with manslaughter.

The seven men are accused of failing to predict the earthquake and of not properly communicating the risks to the community.

The case has sent shockwaves across the world, with 5,000 scientists signing a petition condemning the action.

On March 31, 2009, a group of scientists, engineers and local officials held a meeting in L'Aquila to discuss recent seismic activity.

There had been a series of tremors and the community was becoming anxious.

Bernardo de Bernardinis, who was then the deputy chief of Italy's civil protection department, spoke to journalists on his way into the conference.

"There is no danger," he said then.

"The scientific community continue to tell me that in fact conditions are looking favourable. The intensity of the tremors is scaling down in force.

"The population around here understands that it's just a fact of life in this area. It's an area prone to seismic activity."

De Bernardinis went on to tell the community that instead of being concerned they should all relax and enjoy the local red wine.

Six days later, a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck L'Aquila in the early hours of the morning, reducing centuries-old buildings to rubble, killing 309 people. and making at least 70,000 homeless.

Giustino Parisse lost his father and two teenage children in the quake.

He is one of the key members of the group bringing the manslaughter case against the scientists and de Bernardinis.

He says the community was misinformed and misled.

"The people who took part in that meeting had a very casual attitude and gave the impression to the outside world that there was nothing to be afraid of. That message had no basis to it," he said.

Willy Aspinall, a professor in natural hazards and risk science at Bristol University in the UK, is one of the 5,000 international scientists formally condemning this unprecedented court action.

"There's no question that the scientists are right; earthquake prediction in an exact sense, you know, with a precise time, precise location and precise magnitude, is way beyond our capabilities," he said.

"And then the issue is not perhaps one of the town being evacuated or not, but should the people of L'Aquila have been given a clearer statement of the scientific uncertainties involved in this?

"It might have saved a few [lives]. In their grandparents' time when they had these sort of storms they would often sleep outside in tents or in the car, or even in some cases move out of the town to country cottages or whatever.

"The main complaint is that people were so reassured by these official statements that they didn't do what inclination and almost instinct told them to do."

If convicted, the group of seven faces jail sentences of up to 12 years.