Italy sentences scientists to 6 years

BBC

Six Italian scientists and an ex-government official have been sentenced to six years in prison over the 2009 deadly earthquake in L'Aquila.

A regional court found them guilty of multiple manslaughter.

Soon they might round up priests for failing to predict an Act of God

Ha ha ha... What a joke. Guess somebody has to swing for nature's act.
JC

This is what I love about EF ... I "read the news" here ... and it re-enforces my idea that the world is going to hell in a sh*t-bucket.

The Italian legal system is arse about face. It's even worse than the UK in terms of playing the blame game, but in this instance the Italians have outdone themselves.

Basically a 6.3 magnitude earthquake is a titch on the scale of earthquakes. The only reason people died is due to the fact that the buildings were old, and built to Italian architectural standards of the time - not good and a perfect reciepe for disaster from what I've seen of older buildings in Italy.

There is no way should these seismologists be prison.

IMO the local commissioners that approved the flimsy construction methods should be on the chopping block.
JC

Idiots.

This is now going to prompt "panic" predictions in the future, with everyone hedging towards worse-case scenarios.

Truly, this is idiotic beyond words. Even the US-based "gotta blame someone" culture couldn't come up with something so dumb.

No need to jump to conclusions. The Italian legal system involves lots of appeals. This is just the first step. Emotions are running high, but hey, it's Italy. Right? Getting all hot and bothered now is premature.

Indeed, minimum two appeals, so at least another ten years or so before it's sorted.

Tom

Wouldn't be so sure about that.


Can't say that. Italian houses are better in construction than e.g. Swiss houses, especially the old ones, as Italy has a wealthier architecture background in many regions and a long tradition in real estate and property (some 80 something %, Switzerland is far away from both).
Of course one has to check the type of construction and common awareness of earthquake risk in construction and building houses (e.g. the high death toll in the Messina-Reggio earthquake of 1908 - one of Europe's worst ever - is due to the local stone in constructions used back then, however even back then people in earthquake-safe buildings survived, i.e. it was possible to protect the population also more than 100 years ago, if there was a will). True that 6.3 is not that much, however the death toll is not huge either.

An idiot would call L'Aquila and the whole Appenninic mountains a lower risk zone, afaIk it was always among the highest risk zones in all Italy, unlike Emilia e.g.

I don't think that in many Swiss builds sand is used as a substitute for concrete in order to save money...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_L...ding_standards

They've just raided the Vatican. The defence used the argument that it was an "act of God" so they've arrested the Pope who must surely have known.

Apart from the aspect that one finds out about scandals and criminal activities regarding building standards more likely only after a building's collapse (e.g. from earth quakes, and there haven't been many of them in CH recently),

I wouldn't be so sure about construction-linked law enforcement in Switzerland (multiple subcontract agencies, salary-dumping, lack in transparency, high degree of corruption and conflict of interest technic bureau - mayor - architects and engineers make Switzerland a paradise for criminality in this sector. Federalism as its worse).

Btw regarding the sand-in-concrete scandal, if I remember it well it was the public building sector to suffer from those low quality concrete and its criminal use/commerce, not the private.

fixed that for you

Yeah, why not spent some more tax-payers' money in that stupid socialist judicial system.

Journalist imprisoned for defamation Taliban-style:

http://globalfree.wordpress.com/2012...case-in-italy/

Italy is going down the drain and it is becoming an even worse country than in the Berlusconi-era.

That's all well and good, but misses the point that those guys shouldn't be in prison in the first place...

Fortunately they're not.

Quote from the Telegraph:" Defence lawyers condemned the sentence and pledged to appeal it - under the Italian system, the seven will remain free until they have exhausted two chances to appeal."

Stupid scientists should have fiddled with a few choir boys and received a Papal blessing, a new job, a Catholic pardon, a few Hail Marys and a nice "Get out of Jail Free, collect € 20'000 if you pass a Cathedral" bonus.

Scientists up for six years in the Slammer.......
..and here is me thinking that thems just some wicked hemerhoids..

Even if they're unlikely to go to jail after this pantomime has played out, it is unnecessary stress for the "criminals" and their family.

Who in their right mind is going to want to work in Italian earthquake prediction now? If there is a shortage and another surprise earthquake then who will be to blame?

I read something about this on a few other sites like Slashdot this morning, and while I'm not in favor of the conviction, I understand that it's not actually a conviction for failing to predict the earthquake. Some posters have explained that it's a conviction for misprepresenting the risk (eg saying "no risk of an earthquake here, folks!") in order to appease local politicians interested in protecting the tourism industry.

That said, posters have also stated that although that's what they were found guilty of, it's not correct; apparently, the seismologists only said "that guy predicting the earthquake isn't doing so based on factual, scientific reasoning."

Given my total lack of understanding of the Italian language, though, I can only repeat what I've read elsewhere.