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Seven scientists and other experts are standing trial on manslaughter charges for allegedly failing to sufficiently warn residents before a devastating earthquake that killed more than 300 people in central Italy in 2009.
The case is being closely watched by seismologists around the world, who insist it is impossible to predict earthquakes and say no major tremor has ever been foretold.
Last year about 5,200 international researchers signed a petition supporting their Italian colleagues, and the Seismological Society of America wrote to Italy's president expressing concern about what it called an unprecedented legal attack on science.
The seven defendants are accused of giving "inexact, incomplete and contradictory information" about whether smaller tremors felt by L'Aquila residents in the six months before the quake, on 6 April 2009, should have constituted grounds for a quake warning.
The case is being closely watched by seismologists around the world, who insist it is impossible to predict earthquakes and say no major tremor has ever been foretold.
Last year about 5,200 international researchers signed a petition supporting their Italian colleagues, and the Seismological Society of America wrote to Italy's president expressing concern about what it called an unprecedented legal attack on science.
The seven defendants are accused of giving "inexact, incomplete and contradictory information" about whether smaller tremors felt by L'Aquila residents in the six months before the quake, on 6 April 2009, should have constituted grounds for a quake warning.
Italian scientists on trial for failing to predict earthquake
Seismologists around the world in uproar at legal move, which they say is an attack on science
www.theguardian.com
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