Communicating Risk
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Hello and welcome to More or Less on the BBC World Service. I'm Ruth Alexander. It's the fourth anniversary of an earthquake which devastated the city of L'Aquila in Italy and made headlines around the globe. World update from the BBC.
Coming up, a powerful earthquake hits central Italy. We'll have the latest from rescue workers.
More than 300 people were killed. Natural disasters are always shocking, but this incident became extraordinary. Six scientists and an official were put on trial for failing to give proper warnings before the disaster. 5,000 scientists around the world signed an open letter to the Italian president saying there was no way the accused could have predicted the earthquake. There was a feeling that science itself was being put on trial. But in October, the seven were convicted.
A court in Italy has jailed six scientists and a government official for manslaughter because they'd underestimated the risk of an earthquake. The seven received sentences of six years each...
In the end, the case wasn't about the scientists' ability to predict earthquakes, but how well they communicated the risk. They met to discuss a series of tremors that had been occurring, concluding that a large earthquake was unlikely, but that the possibility could not be excluded. However, in a press conference, one expert said the situation was normal and citizens were told there was no danger.
What happened in the L'Aquila earthquake trial and why did scientists get convicted?
In the trial's closing statement, the prosecution quoted one of its witnesses, whose father died in the earthquake. He said his parents were afraid and would normally have left their home, but had decided, on the basis of the expert's reassurance, to stay. The scientists are appealing their convictions, and their sentences were viewed with alarm by other statisticians and scientists. At the time of the verdict, we spoke to David Spiegelhalter, Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University in the UK.
It seems to me this is a triple tragedy. Obviously, we shouldn't forget the terrible case of 300 people that died there, and that's the main thing. But now there's been this additional tragedy of these seismologists being prosecuted for large fines and ludicrous six-year sentences. But there's the chance of a third tragedy, which is just the withdrawal of the scientific community from engagement. I mean, who's going to be a seismologist in Italy now?
But almost six months on, it seems the opposite has happened. Scientists and officials are sending out data and alerts on tremors on a regular basis. But how useful is this? Danny Mitzman reports from one of Italy's earthquake-prone regions.
It's a different kind of aftershock. As Francesca Maffini from the Civil Protection Department explains, it's not the verdict itself, it's the very fact they were put on trial. She says it's inevitable that scientists are now erring on the side of caution when informing decision-makers like them. If the risk is between zero and 40%, today they'll tell us it's 40%, even if they think it's closer to zero%. They're protecting themselves, which is perfectly understandable. Seismic areas are now subject to a sort of post-Aquila paradox, the authorities feeling obliged to predict the unpredictable. Everyone knows you can't predict an earthquake, says Anne Thornley-Bennett. So why, on January 31st, did she decide to evacuate when the local council sent out warnings of a major quake due to strike overnight?
We just went along with the mania, she sighs. When you've got little ones, well, if anything did happen, you'd never forgive yourself. Anne and her husband live in the picturesque but highly seismic Garfagnana region of Tuscany. For a week they'd been experiencing constant tremors and aftershocks of up to 3.8 on the Richter scale. One day the kids were even evacuated from school without their coats. She giggles, realising I'd appreciate that only a real emergency would see Italian children being sent outside coatless in winter.
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