Failing To Do The Impossible

Italian scientists are being held on trial for their inability to predict the future.

Is not informing the public about a natural disaster sufficient basis for a manslaughter charge? This question is being addressed in court in regards to an earthquake that hit L’Aquila, Italy on April 6, 2009.

A 6.3 magnitude earthquake claimed more than 300 lives and was responsible for the destruction of more than 20,000 buildings. Six Italian seismologists and one government official have been charged with manslaughter, stemming from the claim that they failed to warn the town of the potential destructive earthquake. If convicted, the defendants could face sentences of up to 12 years.
The seven defendants belonged to a committee that was set in place to study a spike in recent seismic activity, which resulted in a 4.0 magnitude earthquake on March 30, 2009. The charges brought against them are based on the claim that the group did not adequately interpret the warning signs of the impending earthquake and did not warn the city about the impending disaster.

“The scientific community tells me there is no danger, because there is an ongoing discharge of energy. The situation looks favorable,” Bernardo de Bernardis, head of the committee, said in a press conference on March 31, 2009.
“[The defendants] gave inexact, incomplete and contradictory information about whether smaller tremors in L’Aquila six months before the 6.3 magnitude quake on 6 April, which killed more than 300 people, should have been viewed as warning signs of the subsequent disaster,” residing judge Romano Gargarella said in a statement.

NO PLACE FOR COURT JESTERS

The trial began Sept. 20 and was met by outcry from scientists around the world. Nearly 4,000 researchers from over 100 countries have signed a letter addressed to the Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano, encouraging him to stop prosecution of the seismologists. Some scientists said these researchers are being persecuted for failing to do the impossible – predict the future.
“The allegations against the scientists are completely unfounded,” the open letter to the President of the Republic of Italy states. “Years of research worldwide have shown that there is currently no scientifically accepted method for short-term earthquake prediction that can reliably be used by Civil Protection authorities for rapid and effective emergency actions.”

However, Vincenzo Vittorini, head of the victims’ committee “309 Martiri,” or 309 Martyrs, said he wants answers.

“Nobody here wants to put science in the dock. We all know that the earthquake could not be predicted, and that evacuation was not an option,” Vittorini said in an interview with Nature News. “All we wanted was clearer information on risks in order to make our choices.”
Others still believe that earthquake forecasting is not an exact science.

“In places where earthquakes occur infrequently, predictions about future earthquakes can only highlight the potential but cannot give exact dates or locations,” Boston University earth sciences associate professor Ulrich Faul said in an e-mail interview. “As we learn more about earthquakes and, crucially, we have longer observational records, forecast probabilities for earthquakes will become more precise but there will be surprises for a long time to come.”

FAULTS OUTSIDE OF THE COURTROOM

L’Aquila sits in an area densely populated with fault lines, meaning that this city of 67,000 is no stranger to seismic activity. Since the city was founded in the 1300s, it has been struck by numerous earthquakes, some claiming as many as 6,000 lives.

The problem with earthquake forecasting is that it is difficult to provide exact information, according to Faul. Today, seismologists make predictions based on history.

“The problem is that we have systematically recorded earthquakes only for a very short period of time relative to the repeat patterns of earthquakes, which are ultimately due to the movements of tectonic plates at the Earth’s surface,” Faul said. “For other [areas], where there is much less activity, correspondingly less is known about possible earthquakes.”

PREDITCTING THE FUTURE

The U.S. government earthquake information website cites the probability of a large earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area over the next thirty years, stating, “The overall probability of a magnitude 6.7 or greater earthquake in the Greater Bay Area is 63%, about 2 out of 3, which is very close to the probability of 62% obtained by the 2002 Working Group.”
Another issue that makes earthquake forecasting difficult is that different magnitudes will elicit different outcomes depending on where they strike. Infrastructure strength plays a large role in the impact an earthquake has.

“A magnitude 6.3 earthquake like the one in Italy, or a somewhat larger one in Turkey earlier this week would do comparatively little damage in Japan, where buildings are designed to withstand such earthquakes (many of the aftershocks of the magnitude 9 earthquake there in March were larger than the earthquake in Italy),” Faul said. “The problem with emergency planning and particularly building codes is that this costs money, encouraging potential dangers to be ignored or downplayed.”
Scientists who signed the open letter to the Italian Government stressed this point.

“Overall, earthquake preparedness and damage prevention in the form of retrofitting are not only possible but mandatory in a country affected for the most by moderate size earthquakes that often result in catastrophes for the society because of the large percentage of seismically unreinforced buildings,” the letter said.
One day, scientists may be able to more accurately predict major earthquakes. A prediction technique now in development would use computer and lab models of fault lines to perform experiments.

However, Faul said he doesn’t think this technique is ready for use.

“[This approach] is not yet at a stage where it could be used directly for predicting earthquakes, leaving observation of past earthquakes as the main tool to predict future ones,” Faul said.
The open letter to the Italian President concluded with a plea to the Italian government to consider that the six seismologists could not have predicted the April 6, 2009 earthquake with 100 percent accuracy.

“The scientific community involved in earthquake science urges the Italian government, local authorities and decision makers in general, to be proactive in establishing and carrying out local and national programs to support earthquake preparedness and risk mitigation rather than prosecuting scientists for failing to do something they cannot do yet – predict earthquakes,” the letter said.
Over the coming months, the trial will shed light on the future of government-sanctioned research in Italy. The outcome could have a major impact on scientists in Italy and around the world, but just like earthquakes, it will be difficult to predict.