Six Italian seismologists will be tried for manslaughter as a result of deaths in an earthquake that struck the city of L'Aquila in April 2009, UPI quoted authorities as saying. An Italian government official has also been charged. The seven were on a committee gauging the risk associated with recent increases in seismic activity in the area, and a week before the quake, some members of the group publicly declared there was no danger, an article in Nature magazine reported. In the aftermath of the quake, in which 309 people died, many residents claimed the public announcement was the reason they did not take precautionary measures in advance of the magnitude-6.3 quake. As a consequence, the public prosecutor of L'Aquila brought manslaughter charges, saying the committee's risk assessment resulted in "incomplete, imprecise and contradictory public information." While acknowledging that committee members had no way of predicting the earthquake, he accused them going beyond scientific uncertainty to an overly optimistic message.
