The trial of several scientists on manslaughter charges for having allegedly failed to warn the residents of the Italian city of L’Aquila of the possible risks they faced opened on Tuesday in Italy. A severe earthquake devastated the city in April 2009, killing some 300 people, including many students at the University of L’Aquila.
The Associated Press reports that “the case is being closely watched by seismologists around the globe who insist it’s impossible to predict earthquakes and dangerous to suggest otherwise, since seismologists will be discouraged from issuing any advice at all if they fear legal retaliation.”
According to Nature, the indictments of six leading Italian scientists and one government official “have drawn global condemnation,” and the American Geophysical Union, the Seismological Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have issued statements in support of the defendants.
Prosecutors and representatives of families of the victims say the trial is not about the science of predicting earthquakes, but about whether the scientists were negligent in an official report they prepared and in public reassurances they gave about smaller tremors felt by L’Aquila residents in the months before the catastrophic quake.
