When Bernardo de Bernardinis was asked whether tremors in the Italian city of L’Aquila foreshadowed a major earthquake, his reassuring message to the public was not so much black-and-white as red-or-white. There was no need for evacuation, the civil protection officer assured the press: fretful citizens should go home and sip a glass of wine. His preferred vintage? “Absolutely, absolutely a Montepulciano D.O.C.”
Six days later, in April 2009, L’Aquila was struck by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake that killed 309 people. Mr Bernardinis and the six seismologists who advised him were this week convicted of manslaughter, jailed for six years each and ordered to pay a total €7.8m ($8.7m) in damages. The judge said the defendants’ “completely inept, unsuitable and criminally mistaken” assessment of risks had materially contributed to the deaths of 29 victims who chose to stay put.
The outcome comforted relatives, who had pressed for criminal charges, but outraged the scientific community, which contends that the six scientists and the official who incorrectly conveyed their assessment have been punished for failing to predict the unpredictable.