Six top Italian geophysicists are on trial for manslaughter and could be facing 15 years in prison. They are being accused of indirectly causing the death of over three hundred people. How could this possibly be, you ask?
They didn’t predict an earthquake.
I promise you, this isn’t an article straight out of the Onion. This is real.
In April 2009, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the L’Aquila region of Italy. No one was expecting an earthquake of this magnitude, even though lots of tiny earthquakes, or foreshocks, were detected in the days before. Hundreds of people were killed or injured, and many ancient buildings and churches were damaged. In the days following the quake, an uprising of angry victims and families vocalized their disappointment in the nation’s geologists for not preparing them well enough for this natural disaster, claiming that the geologists should have been able to predict this earthquake. As a result, the six top scientists and a public official are now on trial for manslaughter.
This is a tragic event that destroyed lives and buildings, but there was absolutely no way it could have been predicted. This region of Italy, like our own Pacific Northwest, is very geologically complicated, and all of these complicated geological features lead to lots of little earthquakes very often. Generally, when a smattering of foreshocks did occur, there was no big event that followed, so the geologists had no way of knowing when “the big one” would hit.
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), earthquake prediction is listed under “fiction.” Earthquake science is a tricky one because it can’t be tested, and currently there is “no accepted method to accomplish the goal of predicting the time, place and magnitude of an impending quake,” says the USGS’s website. All we know about earthquakes are through detection and observation. We know how they work, we know what causes them and we know when and if they’ve happened in the past. But we do not have the technology to predict an earthquake down to a day, a week, a month or even a year.
Take the Pacific Northwest, for example. In our lifetime, the entire west coast of Oregon will get sucked under the Earth in an enormous earthquake that will destroy towns and lives. This earthquake, the result of the Juan De Fuca plate subducting under our continent, has happened on a basically regular basis for centuries. However, humans only started keeping written records a finite time ago, so we don’t know if the regularity continues beyond. What we do know is that the earthquakes do happen … well, let’s just say we’re overdue. But that doesn’t mean any scientist can predict when it will happen.
Earthquakes are a direct result of the movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates. These plates are sliding around on top of the mantel, colliding, pushing, scraping, and sometimes one plate is pushed and pulled under the other. And just like when you bend a stick to crack it, rock will bend and snap under the right amount of pressure. Another reason an earthquake can occur is if stress is relieved. There is so much energy pent up in those rocks that the slightest release can cause a devastating quake. It’s that amount of pressure that is impossible to predict. In the past, scientists suggested using explosives to try and relieve some of that pressure artificially, but this was never put into practice because the consequences could be dire. What happened that day in Italy was even more unpredictable than the weather.
Suing geologists for not predicting an earthquake is like suing a meteorologist when someone gets struck by lightning. The prosecuting party says “we want justice.” Justice for what? The geologists didn’t commit a crime, unless not being able to predict the future is a crime. Unfortunately, the prosecution has grabbed on to something that was said by the vice directed for Civil Protection, Bernardo De Bernardinis. When asked if citizens shouldn’t worry about and earthquake, and should “relax with a glass of wine,” Bernardinis responded “Absolutely, absolutely.” His lawyers claim that it was a joke, but in the wake of a destructive natural disaster, it’s a hard case to make.
Humans have always been frustrated with their lack of ability to control nature, and this trial is an example of that. Those geologists would never have been able to predict that earthquake, and they shouldn’t be blamed. Hopefully this episode will lead to something good, like more research, funding, and investment into earthquake science and prediction, rather than put seven innocent people in jail.