Earthquake experts convicted in Italy
Verdict stems from lack of warning in ’09
L’AQUILA, Italy – In a verdict that sent shock waves through the scientific community, an Italian court convicted seven experts of manslaughter on Monday for failing to adequately warn residents of the risk before an earthquake struck central Italy in 2009, killing more than 300 people.
The defendants, all prominent scientists or geological and disaster experts, were sentenced to six years in prison.
Earthquake experts worldwide decried the trial as ridiculous, contending there was no way of knowing that a flurry of tremors would lead to a deadly quake.
“It’s a sad day for science,” said seismologist Susan Hough, of the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, Calif.
In Italy, convictions aren’t definitive until after at least one appeal, so it was unlikely any of the defendants would face jail immediately.
Italian officials and experts have been prosecuted for quake-triggered damage in the past, including a 2002 school collapse in southern Italy that killed 27 children and a teacher. But that case centered on allegations of shoddy construction in quake-prone areas.
Among those convicted Monday were some of Italy’s best known and most internationally respected seismologists and geological experts, including Enzo Boschi, former head of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.
“I am dejected, desperate,” Boschi said. “I thought I would have been acquitted. I still don’t understand what I was convicted of.”
The trial began in September 2011 in this Apennine town, whose devastated historic center is still largely deserted.
The defendants were accused of giving “inexact, incomplete and contradictory information” about whether small tremors felt by L’Aquila residents in the weeks and months before the April 6, 2009, quake should have been grounds for a warning.
Prosecutors had sought convictions and four-year sentences during the trial. They argued that the L’Aquila disaster was tantamount to “monumental negligence,” and cited the devastation wrought in 2005 when levees failed to protect New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.