Italian seismologists tried for manslaughter in connection with '09 quake

If you think the American legal system is loopy, you should get a load of what this Italian court is up to....

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By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor
LiveScience
updated 5/26/2011 6:14:39 PM ET 2011-05-26T22:14:39

Earthquake prediction can be a grave, and faulty science, and in the case of Italian seismologists who are being tried for the manslaughter of the people who died in the 2009 L'Aquila quake, it can have legal consequences.

The group of seven, including six seismologists and a government official, reportedly didn't alert the public ahead of time of the risk of the L'Aquila earthquake, which occurred on April 6 of that year, killing around 300 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

But most scientists would agree it's not their fault they couldn't predict the wrath of Mother Nature.

"We're not able to predict earthquakes very well at all," John Vidale, a Washington State seismologist and professor at the University of Washington, told LiveScience.

Even though advances have been made, the day scientists are able to forecast earthquakes is still "far away," Dimitar Ouzounov, a professor of earth sciences at Chapman University in California, said this month regarding the prediction of the March 11 earthquake in Japan.

Okay, um, as a science student with vague connections to this department at times, I can tell you that when it comes to prediction, meteorology and seismology are pretty much a coin flip. There are times when the predictions can be more accurate (There is quite obviously a hurricane heading for the coast, for example), but a lot of times, Mother Nature leads you one way, then comes in with a surprise sucker punch.

Earthquakes especially are hard to predict, because sometimes, there are no signs. Just BOOM, earthquake. Or they think a big one is coming, and instead, they get ten little ones.

^
Meterology can usually at least give you an hour or two heads up when a threatening storm is coming. 99% of the time, they freak out about possible tornadoes that never happen, but at least they have an idea about what's going to happen.

Earthquake prediction is a lot like trying to predict which Tim Wakefield will show up to the game. Only Tim Wakefield knows.

Lapin wrote:

Okay, um, as a science student with vague connections to this department at times, I can tell you that when it comes to prediction, meteorology and seismology are pretty much a coin flip. There are times when the predictions can be more accurate (There is quite obviously a hurricane heading for the coast, for example), but a lot of times, Mother Nature leads you one way, then comes in with a surprise sucker punch.

It still makes me wonder--how long before some indigo child who had their wedding day or graduation ruined by rain tries to sue the local weatherman? In a just world, the suit would be laughed out of court, but then again, in a just world seismologists wouldn't be put on trial for earthquake deaths.

Contrarily to what it may look like, it's not like the diviners are going to be beheaded for not being able to predict an earthquake. It's a game of passing the hot potato between politicians, builders and technicians - not only geologists and seismologists but also engineers and technicians who are supposed to know which buildings are safe and which are not. Buildings had been classified in 1999 and again in 2003, but the authorities told everyone not to worry and stay at home.
The people being tried are those who met on the 31st as members of the "Great Risks Commission", which exists precisely to give indications of what to do in cases like this. Bertolaso, the president of the Protezione Civile, ought to attend such meetings, but he was busy with arranging a G8 and sent his deputy. The meeting began at 18:45 and ended at 19:30, because a press conference had been indicted.

What happened at L'Aquila was not a lightning in a clear sky like the Tohoku earthquake. Foreshocks had been registered since the end of 2008 and when the Commission first met two, on the 29th and 30th of March, had reached IV grade Richter.

If Giuliani could be denounced for "causing unnecessary alarm" it seems just right that investigations cover the other end of the spectrum. I am fully in favour of a trial, to allow everyone to talk and finally shed light on the matter. There are claims of sea sand being used in the concrete, corroding the iron girders because of the salt within. A dormitory in the university crumpled like it had been made of shortbread: 55 dead.
One thing for sure: all sorts of vultures have feasted on the L'Aquila earthquake - from builders congratulating with each other for the great opportunity, to Jehova's Witnesses saying "we told you so". In the middle of it all, as usual, Berlusconi smiling and telling jokes about the homeless "camping at the expenses of the government".

Ohhhhhhhhhhh

SEA SAND?! WHO THE FUCK WOULD DO SOMETHING SO GODDAMNED RECKLESS AND IRRESPONSIBLE?! (More shouting and swearing)

Wait, they were having foreshocks? That high? No, that's not a coin toss, that's the "There is quite obviously a hurricane heading for the coast" example. Even with what I said earlier, everyone knows that the "ounce of prevention" applies to this. They should have immediately evacuated all at risk areas until the danger had passed. What the hell were they thinking? I'm a fucking botany major minoring in astronomy, who only goes into the realm of the meteorology and geology students when I can't send a minion instead, and I know that.

Yes, there absolutely needs to be a trial now. Why would they act so irresponsibly?

How much would this commission have been faulted if they had evacuated everyone unnecessarily though? I know next to nothing about seismology, so whether or not there was good indication of an impending disaster I can't say, but if it was as unclear as the original article makes it seem, they were probably balancing the costs of an unnecessary evacuation and "incompetency" charges regardless of what they predicted.

From my own experience, anytime law enforcement tries to get involved in science it's usually bad news. In the U.S. at least there's a huge problem of intensive care doctors actually being prosecuted for not providing ideologically-driven end of life care, because law enforcement knows fuckall about medicine. /totally off-topic

If the fault line was giving consistent foreshocks that were increasing in magnitude, than yes, evacuation is standard procedure. Especially when you have buildings that are dodgy. Your chances of landing on heads has gone up from 50% to 75% at that point, and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in this case.

I just don't understand why they didn't advocate evacuation, and I really want to hear their reasoning. I'm not saying they won't have good reasoning; there must be something. No one would endanger human life like that on purpose. I just want to know, and I think most people in this situation need to at this point.

Trioculus wrote:

It still makes me wonder--how long before some indigo child who had their wedding day or graduation ruined by rain tries to sue the local weatherman? In a just world, the suit would be laughed out of court, but then again, in a just world seismologists wouldn't be put on trial for earthquake deaths.

Yeah, it's like having members of the National Weather Service arrested for not catching the tornadoes that ripped through western Mass. yesterday.

Chris91 wrote:

Yeah, it's like having members of the National Weather Service arrested for not catching the tornadoes that ripped through western Mass. yesterday.

No, more like investigating the top tier of the FEMA after Katrina, and reconsidering its role in managing emergencies while we're at it. Did you even read my post?

You're making it even seem absurd that there is a trial. I want there to be one, which does not mean I want these guys condemned. I want a debate in which everything you say is written down. In 1999, Franco Barberi coordinated a huge work of catalogation of the buildings in Central and Southern Italy. All the structures which fell at L'Aquila were classified as "vulnerable". If Professor Barberi wants to say who knew about the report and chose not to act upon it, I'd love to hear him out.

Other than Franco Barberi, who was head of the Civil Protection from 1997 to 2001, the other accused are:
Bernardo de Bernardinis was the deputy head of the Protezione Civile and holds a degree in Civil Engineering. Since 2002 he's been head of the Office for the [Management] of Natural Risks.
Giulio Selvaggi is director of the Earthquake National Center.
Claudio Eva is a seismologist.
Mauro Dolce is a civil engineer and teaches Earthquake Engineering, with more than 130 papers published and 6 patents related to the subject.
Gian Michele Calvi is another civilian engineer and head of the C.A.S.E. project (housings for the people rendered homeless by the earthquake)
Enzo Boschi holds a degree in Physics. In 1985 he alerted the Civil Protection ministry about an imminent earthquake in Southern Italy: 100.000 people were evacuated, but no earthquake followed. The minister came under fire for "causing unnecessary alarm".

These people are not the Dilberts of the situation and you can look up their CVs if you want: they have been in the earthquake management business for a long time, in a country that has enough seismic activity to allow a general rehearsal every 5-10 years.

The proceedings of the fateful (and short) 31st March meeting can be summarised as follows: "The occurrence of several shocks of increasing magnitudo does not mean that more severe seismic events are due. The only defense from earthquakes lies in the strenghtening of buldings and improving the level of preparedness in managing emergencies."

Take a look at the stuff in italic, look at the list of names and tell me if this does not fall right into these guys' area of competence. My furniture has been doing the Hokey Cokey for the last six months, I live in a housing project with no two parallel walls, and you tell me I should strenghten the building? Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?

Lapin wrote:

SEA SAND?! WHO THE FUCK WOULD DO SOMETHING SO GODDAMNED RECKLESS AND IRRESPONSIBLE?!

Contractors who made the lowest bid, among others. Twenty years ago it did not even take an earthquake: a 30-years old mid-rise in the centre of Foggia simply vanished in the middle of the night. The girders were slick, few and far apart, the concrete was of low quality, and yet the builder lived in there together with all his family. They were among the 67 dead. This is how the 6-story building looked in the morning:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Lapin wrote:

Wait, they were having foreshocks? [...] Even with what I said earlier, everyone knows that the "ounce of prevention" applies to this. They should have immediately evacuated all at risk areas until the danger had passed.

Your last sentence summarises the problem, and Owlish's reasoning is sound. See what I mentioned above about Boschi and may have affected hhis decision. A hurricane has a known, short duration; a seismic swarm does not. L'Aquila experienced similar "swarms" in historical times: one lasting two months which followed an earthquake and another lasting for more than a year which culminated in the Great Earthquake of 1703.
I understand the commission's dilemma: they couldn't just tell people to sleep in their cars until the swarm was over, it would have created a huge security problem. But then what use are the experts? Should we even bother? Any high-school student who managed to stay awake during Science of the Earth could have said the same stuff that was verbalised on March 31st.

I had written a detailed update but Chromium ate it, so here's the short of it: They got six years each.

Pretty much everyone is crying blue murder. I can't really feel sorry for these guys - considering that the sentence is unlikely to survive the three degrees of judgement. I'll just leave this here for discussion: in 2008, Enzo Boschi, one of the six, went with the then Minister for Public Works to a meeting in Mirandola, and calmed down the local population, worried about the proposed construction of a huge gas stocking plant, saying that the area was non-seismic and no major earthquake would happen (so, earthquakes are unpredictable but the lack of earthquakes somehow is).
Good luck construction has not begun yet. This is how Mirandola looked just four years after the meeting:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

As luck would have it, on May 29 2012 the "non-seismic" town was the epicenter for three shocks of magnitudo 5,8 Richter.

An Italian journalist was trying to explain the trial and sentence in terms of the usual anomaly: in other "normal" countries, the members of the commission would have resigned for their manifest incompetence - not because there was an earthquake but because people were killed in the earthquake. The same for the administrators who authorised the construction of the buildings which fell. In Italy, this does not happen because no one resigns ever. Thus the removal from office of a patently inadequate officer has to be done through a painful and seemingly excessive judiciary process.

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Foreshocks had been registered since the end of 2008 and when the Commission first met two, on the 29th and 30th of March, had reached IV grade Richter.

How the hell do you even know they're foreshocks, and not the actual quake, before the actual quake?

Also, the Richter Scale doesn't use Roman Numerals.

Fuck Rome.

So Hurricane Sandy is about to hit Philly. If it amounts to nothing more than a fart can I sue everyone because I want nothing more in life but to be crushed to death by a storm blown-over tree and meteorologists got my hopes all up...

Mr.Doobie wrote:

So Hurricane Sandy is about to hit Philly. If it amounts to nothing more than a fart can I sue everyone because I want nothing more in life but to be crushed to death by a storm blown-over tree and meteorologists got my hopes all up...

Clearly it's all your fault for living in Philly in the first place for the following reasons.

1.) Nothing good has ever happened in Philadelphia in a good century and a half.
2.) Philly, in spite of being known for it's rapes, murders, and overrated sammiches, isn't known for turrible, lethal weather.
3.) You smoke weed and are a liberal and therefore and bad person.

HOORAY BENCHMARK