October 23, 2012

Italian seismologists, including the former president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) Enzo Boshi, a professor of physics at the University of Genoa, Claudio Eva, and one government official, were found guilty of mass murders and misleading the people of the Italian city of Aquila before the earthquake of 2009 and were sentenced to six years' imprisonment each.

According to the "Code of Ethics of earthquakes prediction", adopted in 1991 at the special conference in Strasbourg, if a scientist receives data that a strong earthquake is about to happen somewhere, then he should not transfer that data either to the governmental structures, or even more to the mass media. First of all, he should discuss it with his colleagues. Only if the validity of the forecast is recognized by the scientific community, it should be delivered to emergency services and to the administration of the regions. The "Code" requires the seismologists to stick to the above sequence of events even if the observations indicate that the earthquake could happen in the next few days. Based on the data submitted by scientists regional authorities may decide to evacuate people.

The week before the earthquake in Aquila, the Italian seismologists, after analyzing the materials that they had at their disposal of seismic activity over the past 6 months, as well as the information received from the seismologist D. Giuliani about a possible earthquake in the coming days, stated that there had been no danger of seismic impacts. An earthquake measuring 6.3 points occurred in Aquila, a week after that statement (April 05, 2009). As a result of the disaster 309 people were killed, 1.5 thousand injured, 29,000 became homeless, the historic center of the city was heavily damaged. The damage from the incident exceeded $ 1.5 billion.

Scientists and one government official, who had falsely assessed the possible risks, have been prosecuted. The court decision made on 22.10.2012 was unprecedented. It can lead to the cessation of interaction between experts forecasting the geological hazards and disasters with the governmental structures and to complete abandonment of geological risks assessment.