For underestimating the risk of an impending earthquake which led to 309 deaths of residents who chose not to leave their homes despite current seismic activity.
At the end of a 13-month trial, six scientists and one government official have been found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison. The verdict was based on how they assessed and communicated risk before the earthquake that hit the city of L'Aquila on 6 April 2009, killing 309 people (see
'Scientists on trial: At Fault?'
). The sentence came as a surprise even to the public prosecutor, Fabio Picuti, who had requested a prison term of four years.
De Bernardinis said that the sentence will probably “affect the way experts assume responsibilities in crisis situations”. Melandri was more explicit. “In Italy you will now see many more false alarms in such situations, because experts will choose to cry wolf when in doubt. In the end they will become less and less credible.”
"Despite decades of research into earthquake processes, the ability to predict earthquakes remains elusive. The Italian case is really about the ineffective communication of science," the government-owned research centre said in a statement this afternoon.
The Italian regional court judge jailed the men for underestimating the risks ahead of the magnitude-6.3 quake which killed 309 people in L'Aquila on April 6, 2009.
The group of seven, all members of the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks, were also ordered to pay more than nine million euros in damages.
I find this incredibly sad that science is still so poorly communicated, and that the public is poorly educated and still wants quick sound-bites and neat little summaries that do not lend themselves to an actual understanding of informed risk. This does not bode well.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
