Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Seismologist Manslaughter Trial Begins Next Week

Posted by Soulskill on from the defining-reasonable-prognostication dept.

El Puerco Loco writes with a followup to a story we discussed in May about the manslaughter charges facing six seismologists and one government official in Italy after an earthquake there killed 309 people and destroyed 20,000 buildings. The case is going to trial next week, and an article at Nature provides an update on how things stand: "The indictments have drawn global condemnation. The American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), both in Washington DC, issued statements in support of the Italian defendants. ... The view from L'Aquila, however, is quite different. Prosecutors and the families of victims alike say that the trial has nothing to do with the ability to predict earthquakes, and everything to do with the failure of government-appointed scientists serving on an advisory panel to adequately evaluate, and then communicate, the potential risk to the local population. ... [The charges allege that the defendants] provided 'incomplete, imprecise, and contradictory information' to a public that had been unnerved by months of persistent, low-level tremors. [Prosecutor Fabio Picuti] says that the commission was more interested in pacifying the local population than in giving clear advice about earthquake preparedness. 'I'm not crazy,' Picuti says. 'I know they can't predict earthquakes. The basis of the charges is not that they didn't predict the earthquake. As functionaries of the state, they had certain duties imposed by law: to evaluate and characterize the risks that were present in L'Aquila.'"

36 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Lack of evidence of damage.... by gtvr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Can the prosecution prove that with proper warning, any specific number of lives or amount of property would have been saved? I doubt it.

    1. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by Colonel+Korn · · Score: 4, Funny

      No one in Naples has moved away from Vesuvius despite insistent warnings of disaster from seismologists.

      --
      "I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
    2. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by DanTheStone · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The crime is (apparently) that they failed to provide sufficient and consistent information for everyone to ignore.

    3. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I won't live somewhere if I can't afford earthquake and flood insurance at that location. The insurance actuaries are better at calculating risk than I am :)

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    4. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by esocid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The crime is (apparently) that they failed to provide sufficient and consistent information for everyone to ignore.

      Easy solution: point out Mt. Vesuvius, and tell the populace to follow what happened in AD 79.

      If you want sufficient and consistent information, don't sue the people who have devoted their entire lives to doing so, otherwise you'll be left doing it the old fashioned way, not having any information at all.

      --
      Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
    5. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by shadowfaxcrx · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Does it matter (to them) if they can? Go read up on the Amanda Knox situation, and I think you'll get the same impression I did - Whether she's guilty or not, the Italian justice system is seriously screwed up.

      That this case can even make it to trial is a reinforcement of that belief.

      --
      "I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
    6. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by suso · · Score: 2

      If you're in a position to evaluate danger and you hide facts and issue platitudes, then you're certainly unethical, and possibly criminal.

      I say try them and see how the facts work.

      You're kidding right? Italy is the country that holds the Vatican.

    7. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by Sal+Zeta · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Nope. the crime is that they deliberately ignored all the information available at the moment, and they even suggested the people to get back at their own homes after some earthquakes had previously happened in such zones, even destroying some buildings. It's extremely probable that most of such research institutions were pressed to mislead the population due to the local government, which supported the speculative construction industry backed by some companies controlled by the local mafia.

      If you can understand, a well-known italian writer and journalist and journalist explained the whole affair here

      .

    8. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by Dunbal · · Score: 2

      Yup. Coming soon, doctors will be charged for failing to bring the dead back to life. Way to step back a whole 1000 years or more. The geologists at worst might be negligent and need a reprimand from their professional college at best. But manslaughter? OK, how about charging the government too, because after all they clearly hired incompetent geologists.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    9. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by joocemann · · Score: 4, Informative

      I should point out (lacking links to slashdot stories because I'm on a phone) that the scientists DID predict the earthquake, but were somethinglike 2 weeks early... they partially evacuated, and in under 2 weeks the authorities initiated "yelling fire in a theater" type charges against the scientists. Once those charges were made in haste, the actual earthquake came and people died.

      From what I can deduce; authorities are blame shifting the damages that arose by hastily saying the scientists were wrong instead of admitting that they were right all along (albeit with imperfect prediction).

    10. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by Dunbal · · Score: 2

      and they even suggested the people to get back at their own homes after some earthquakes had previously happened in such zones, even destroying some buildings.

      And if they had warned people to stay away and the next earthquake had happened in say, 50 years (very short for geological time), what then? Sued for spreading alarm among the population?

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    11. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by Pope · · Score: 2

      Well, at least it's not Sparta.

      --
      It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
    12. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by nedlohs · · Score: 2

      Wow what logic, "happy to" means "absolutely will do".

    13. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by Weedhopper · · Score: 2

      Not that simple.

      There was someone who "predicted" the earthquake - for a town 60km over that actually sustained little damage.

      The seismologists on trial are the ones who called a special meeting to debunk the "alarmist" scientist.

    14. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by Sal+Zeta · · Score: 2

      Sorry, maybe I was a bit unclear on my previous post. Such previous incident happened no less than few days before the bigger earthquakes. And the reaction was something very different than a carelessness act. Some of the people in charge of the local seismic centers were wiretapped some day after talking with local homebuilders and politicians, and was pretty clear that they were aware that what happened was a direct consequence of their decision to ignore most of the advices coming from the center.

      They are already standing trial on a different case. What's going on here is being sure that the scientists did everything was in their position to make very clear what was eventually going to happen to the general population, or if they just passively accepted to do as they were ordered.

    15. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by rocket+rancher · · Score: 2

      The crime is (apparently) that they failed to provide sufficient and consistent information for everyone to ignore.

      Easy solution: point out Mt. Vesuvius, and tell the populace to follow what happened in AD 79.

      If you want sufficient and consistent information, don't sue the people who have devoted their entire lives to doing so, otherwise you'll be left doing it the old fashioned way, not having any information at all.

      The scientists in question not only failed to provide consistent and reliable information, they were told by the government to do so. So much for their dedication to truth. They also helped silence one of their own who refused to toe the government line. If you want to hold up scientists as shining examples of integrity, these are the wrong ones, dude.

    16. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by Imrik · · Score: 2

      You neglect to mention that it was a politician not one of the scientists that made that suggestion, inaccurately representing the conclusions of the committee of scientists.

    17. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by stephanruby · · Score: 2

      I think it's more like one scientist predicted the earthquake.

      And currently, it's the scientists and the government official that tried to place that particular scientist in jail that are now being targeted by the angry populace.

    18. Re:Lack of evidence of damage.... by TeXMaster · · Score: 3, Informative

      The crime is (apparently) that they failed to provide sufficient and consistent information for everyone to ignore.

      Easy solution: point out Mt. Vesuvius, and tell the populace to follow what happened in AD 79.

      If you want sufficient and consistent information, don't sue the people who have devoted their entire lives to doing so, otherwise you'll be left doing it the old fashioned way, not having any information at all.

      The scientists in question not only failed to provide consistent and reliable information, they were told by the government to do so. So much for their dedication to truth. They also helped silence one of their own who refused to toe the government line. If you want to hold up scientists as shining examples of integrity, these are the wrong ones, dude.

      If by "one of their own who refused to toe the government line" you're referring to Giampaolo Giuliani, you should keep in mind that the person in question is a ignorant, preposterous asshole with a penchant for conspirational victimism. He's the guy that maintains that he had predicted when and where the "big one" would have hit in that string of tremors, while his predictions were wrong by as much as a week (in time) and around 100km (IIRC; I'd have to check again, been some time since I debated the last time with someone actually believing his crap): errors which are insignificant in geological scales, but are enormously significant in terms of civil protection: had the DPC actually taken action to move the population following Giuliani's warning, the death toll could have been much higher than what it has been (think about it: you move people 100km away from the forecast epicenter location, and they end up being closer to the actual epicenter than they were originally).

      There is a lot of blame that can be distributed around for what happened in L'Aquila, but what the inhabitants are looking for is a big, flashy scape goat rather than the actual responsible for the scale and dimension of the damage. Hitting the seismologist is probably just part of a bigger control strong-arming that is currently going on between the DPC and the research institutions that do the actual data collection and analysis (among other things). So while the populace is looking for a scape goat, the ones actually responsible for the damage will carry o their own way.

      Most of the earthquake damage was actually concentrated on two kinds of buildings: very new ones, which built on the cheap and without respecting the anti-seismic criteria which are obligatory when building in areas (such as that one) which are known to be at high seismic risk, and very old ones: in these cases, what happened was that some buildings had "custom changes" done by their more modern inhabitants, changes that (not intentionally) significantly weakened their structure, causing them them to fall and to bat against other buildings that would have managed to resist otherwise (domino effect).

      The lead responsibility for the actual damage rests mainly on two actors: a number of builders and contractors (the most infamous of which is Impregilo, which is rather well known to operate mostly by corruption —corruption to win contracts, corruption to get paid more than their job is worth, corruption for getting paid without actually doing the work, and so on and so forth—) and the actual local population. The fault does rest on the DPC shoulders because of it being the government agency specifically tasked with prevention and intervention in case of disaster, a task which it was quite obviously incapable of fulfilling correctly: not because of it's failure in communicating correctly with the population "in time", but because of the failure to exert the appropriate control for the whole 20-year span before the earthquake: prevention means checking that the new buildings do satisfy the anti-seismic criteria they are suppos

      --
      "I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
  2. Which is worse by alphatel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In America, climatologists get sued and harassed for making public statements about global warming.

    --
    When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
    1. Re:Which is worse by mc6809e · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In America, climatologists get sued and harassed for making public statements about global warming.

      Weren't they sued because they were public employees refusing to provide the public with all their data? The public paid for the data and the research. Seems reasonable the public should get to see what they bought.

    2. Re:Which is worse by sloth+jr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yup, agreed. I figure you probably were being sarcastic, but yeah: we do pay for DoD research and data, and we certainly should be able to see that. Too much is classified that doesn't need to be, and that which does need to be classified is classified for too long.

    3. Re:Which is worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You might as well say "heretic".

      Or equate them with holocaust deniers.

    4. Re:Which is worse by Mashiki · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes because we all know that people "outside the ivory towers" are just "uneducated masses" who have no understanding of things like physics, chemistry and biology. With no chance of having taught themselves.

      None at all. That's what we call elitism.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    5. Re:Which is worse by wsanders · · Score: 3, Informative

      The refusers in question were academic researchers not government employees. Just because you receive a federal grant does not mean you are obligated to make all of your unpublished data, emails, and records available to extremist crackpots. The FOIA does apply "to data produced with federal support that are cited publicly and officially by a federal agency in support of an action that has the force and effect of law. "

      Citation: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/business/awards/foia.html

      There was another case involving a NASA scientist who was simply being harassed by climate-change deniers. NASA has much less leeway since it's a federal agency.

      --
      Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
    6. Re:Which is worse by jonbryce · · Score: 2

      And what's more, it must increase day-on-day with no cooling phases. I predict that in a few months time, people will be pointing to some snow in the northern hemisphere and saying it is totally conclusive evidence that global warming can't possibly be taking place. We have entered an extreme cooling phase in the past 6 months.

  3. Giampaolo Giuliani by Ichijo · · Score: 5, Informative

    When one seismologist is accused of being alarmist by the Director of the Civil Defence, forced to remove his findings from the Internet, and reported to police for "causing fear" when he predicts an earthquake, is it no wonder why other seismologists would hesitate to report an impending earthquake?

    --
    Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
    1. Re:Giampaolo Giuliani by Bobfrankly1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      When one seismologist is accused of being alarmist by the Director of the Civil Defense, forced to remove his findings from the Internet, and reported to police for "causing fear" when he predicts an earthquake, is it no wonder why other seismologists would hesitate to report an impending earthquake?

      What is interesting is that the seismologists on trial appear to have called a special open session to basically discredit Giuliani (a laboratory tech) and calm the public. There wasn't a hesitation to report an impending earthquake, there was a statement of "many small tremors = no big earthquake = nothing to worry about" followed by an urging to go drink some wine. This caused many to ignore their routine (if a small tremor happens, the family sleeps outside or in a car). The break from routine (prompted by the statement of safety) cost many their families and/or lives as they slept inside "medieval" buildings that were not "anti-seismic".

      There appears to be quite a bit of he said/she said between the scientists and those who took part in the press conference, and it's notable that the "commission did not issue its usual formal statement, and the minutes of the meeting were not even prepared, says Boschi, until after the earthquake had occurred."

      Either way it's a real mess and many people died, and if the Nature article is correct, the press conference led people to believe it was safe when it was not. This caused more people to die then if a statement hadn't been issued. It's a difficult situation, and I wouldn't want to be the magistrate overseeing this.

  4. Re:Social Responsiblity by Derekloffin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because engineering has some very well established science behind it, and on top of that you can overbuild to get around uncertainty. Seismology is worlds away from that level of certainty, and you're suppose to give accurate predictions so there is no equivalent to overbuilding.

  5. Will happen, but when? should be worry? by gmuslera · · Score: 2

    Seismologists (and alarmists) had been saying since long time ago that in some moment a big quake will hit San Francisco area, and the city hasnt even tried to be evaquated. Had been predicted that in some moment could be a big tsunami generated by a volcano in the Canary Islands that could kill a lot of people in the caribbean and eastern north america, yet nothing had been done about it. And somewhere in a (probably long, but last year raised concerns) future the yellowstone caldera could blow, and still North America is populated, wasnt evaquated because that incoming predicted disaster. In fact, this cities are predicted to be somehow destroyed in a not very far future, and still people live there.

    Even predicting that something will happen don't mean that it really will, or when, or with a strenght enough to worry about, or that authorities will do something, or that people, even warned, will do anything. If some of those predictions become true, lots of people will die, should the people predicting those things be treated as mass murderers if their predictions ever become true?

  6. brilliant piece of legal work by Zurk · · Score: 2

    For all the non lawyers at /. this may seem a travesty but this is such a brilliant piece of legal work by the prosecutor. Not only has he become famous -- instantly, he has a shot at changing the way the country functions and has managed to get untouchable people to be touched. Plus he has managed to get attention from the international community and the heads of his state. I expect that he has a good shot at putting the scientists behind bars after which he will move on to a well deserved legal career as a lawmaker. Expect solid career advancement as he might end up in the Italian cabinet one day.
    Consider the response of all the international media AND the scientist organizations -- Scientists prosecuted for failed earthquake predictions. OMG !
    Consider what is actually in the prosecutors complaint -- Scientists failed to communicate risks clearly as per their legal duties, which were attached to them as a result of their jobs.
    A truly brilliant prosecution. With a good shot at changing the planet in a small way. With a tiny lever, great changes can be achieved.

  7. Re:If they get Amanda Knox's defense team, they're by rahvin112 · · Score: 2

    Amanda's defense wasn't to blame. That a justice system could put two people in jail for the murder, then a month later convict a third person of the same crime (and revise the entire story of the crime to account for this third actor, which by the way had absolutely no evidence supporting the story) who was never mentioned when the first two were convicted. This turned a three person sex orgy gone wrong into a four person sex orgy murder. Not only that but the third conviction admits to being in the house during the murder and having sex with the victim and has been accused of other violent acts including rape and assault.

    No, Amanda and her boyfriend were convicted because the prosecutor in the case was a lying sniveling asshole that concocted evidence and a damn near unbelievable story to get rid of a case that was generating a lot of publicity during an election cycle. This same prosecutor has been dismissed because he was proven to have done this in the past in creating evidence to get innocent people convicted in high profile cases. (do a search on his name, he tried to build a murder case against a journalist doing a story on him and his inability to solve another high profile murder case).

    The third person convicted of the Kercher murder was the only murderer, he acted alone, likely broke in and tried to rape and ended up killing Kercher in the process. After he was arrested he was coached into saying Knox and her boyfriend were involved (amazingly under the exact same story as the prosecution put forward during the knox trial) under the promise of reduced sentencing, even though Knox had already been convicted and there was little reason to offer leniency other than to avoid the prosecutor getting a black eye for wrongly convicting two innocent people.

  8. Re:Social Responsiblity by NotAGoodNickname · · Score: 2

    They aren't being tried for doing their jobs, they are being tried for allegedly NOT doing their job. The point is that they intentionally disseminated misleading information and not following the correct procedures, not that they didn't predict earthquakes. At least that is what the prosecutor claims. I have no idea if he is correct or not.

  9. Re:Social Responsiblity by RatherBeAnonymous · · Score: 2
    I pulled this from Wikipedia

    Earthquakes mark the history of L'Aquila, as the city is situated partially on an ancient lake-bed that amplifies seismic activity.[1][2]

    On December 3, 1315, the city was struck by an earthquake which seriously damaged the San Francesco Church. Another earthquake struck on January 22, 1349, killing about 800 people. Other earthquakes struck in 1452, then on November 26, 1461, and again in 1501 and 1646. On February 3, 1703 a major earthquake struck the town. More than 3.000 people died and almost all the churches collapsed; Rocca Calascio, the highest fortress in Europe was also ruined by this event, yet the town survived. L'Aquila was then repopulated by decision of Pope Clement XI. The town was rocked by earthquake again in 1706. The most serious earthquake in the history of the town struck on July 31, 1786, when more than 6.000 people died. On June 26, 1958 an earthquake of 5.0 magnitude struck the town.

    On April 6, 2009, at 01:32 GMT (03:32 CEST) an earthquake of 6.3 magnitude struck central Italy with its epicentre near L'Aquila, at 42.4228N 13.3945E.[3] The earthquake caused damage to between 3,000 and 11,000 buildings in the medieval city of L'Aquila.[4] Several buildings also collapsed. 308 people were killed by the earthquake, and approximately 1,500 people were injured. Twenty of the victims were children.[5] Around 65,000 people were made homeless.[6] There were many students trapped in a partially collapsed dormitory.[7] The April 6 earthquake was felt throughout Abruzzo; as far away as Rome, other parts of Lazio, Marche, Molise, Umbria, and Campania.

    Large earthquakes have killed thousands of people in this town. The people must have known about it. It doesn't take a Geologist to tell you that if a major earthquake killed 3000 in the town 300 years ago that it could happen again.

    But really, "making sure they never work in geology again seems like an acceptable solution."? It seems reasonable to strip a scientist of his livelyhood because government officials misunderstood and made an incorrect announcement? It's reasonable to punish a scientist when the people, rather than walking outside during an earthquake as they have done in the town for thousands of years, stayed indoors because the government told them they were safe? It's reasonable to prosecute seismologists for the town's buildings collapsing in on them selves due to old age, disrepair, or insufficient building codes?

  10. How Many Open Positions Now? by djl4570 · · Score: 2

    I expect the Italian government is having a hard time recruiting scientists and engineers to work in government posts. Why would you if some grandstanding prosecutor will go after you because you dissembled like a government bureaucrat. Had they issued unambiguous risk assessments of living in antique masonry buildings the management up the food chain would have been after their scalps for causing a panic.

  11. They are right but got the wrong person by Hentes · · Score: 4, Informative

    Did you read the article? Those people weren't clueless. They have lived in a high risk area for generations and knew that if they feel a tremor they should get out of the house immedietly. Which is what they did until the comittee went to the town in order to calm them down (supposedly under government pressure). In the meeting, one scientist said that the tremors in fact decrease the risk of an earthquake because they release the pressure. Wich sounded logical to a layman but is total bullshit. Another scientist who dared to disagree was sued and silenced.The people of the town concluded that there is nothing to be afraid of and left the precautions they practiced for centuries. This wasn't an honest mistake but deliberate spread of misinfromation.