Six Italian scientists and a former government official have been sentenced to six years in prison, for multiple manslaughter. They were accused of failing to predict the deadly quake.
An Italian court ruled that the seven defendents had failed to give adequate warning of the earthquake, which destroyed large parts of the medieval town of L’Aquila and left more than 300 people dead.
They were accused of giving an overly reassuring picture of the threat facing the town, which was full of ancient and fragile buildings, and of failing to keep local people informed of the risks.
The 6.3 magnitude quake struck the heart of Italy’s L’Abruzzo region in the early hours of the morning of 6 April, 2009, devastating thousands of buildings and killing hundreds of people while they slept.
The scientists, along with the former official, all worked for the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks, which had met in L’Aquila just six days before the quake struck.
Prosecutors pointed to a series of less powerful tremors which had hit the area in the months before the quake, and claimed the scientists should have alerted people to the potential dangers ahead.
One defence lawyer tried to argue they could not have been expected to predict what might happen: “While floods and hurricanes can be forecast, earthquakes cannot,” he said.
But the chief prosecutor, Fabio Picuti, accused the experts of providing “an incomplete, inept, unsuitable and criminally mistaken” analysis, which had given false reassurance to residents.
According to relatives of some of the victims, that meant many people had stayed in their homes, rather than evacuate from the area.
The verdict has sparked outrage from the international scientific community, concerned that it could set a precedent for prosecuting experts over major natural disasters.
They have accused the Italian authorities of being unfair and naive, by putting the seismologists in the dock. But proseuctors, and victims’ families, say the experts had a duty to evaluate the degree of risk, and communicate that to the local population, and they did not.
The scientists are unlikely to be sent to jail straight away, pending a likely appeal.