ROME - AN ITALIAN scientist predicted a major earthquake around L'Aquila weeks before disaster struck the city on Monday, killing dozens of people, but was reported to authorities for spreading panic among the population.
The first tremors in the region were felt in mid-January and continued at regular intervals, creating mounting alarm in the medieval city, about 100km east of Rome.
Italy criss-crossed by two fault lines
THE quake came about five hours after a 4.6-magnitude tremor shook the Ravenna district in Emilia-Romagna region, which was felt over a wide area, notably in the Marche region on the Adriatic coast, officials said.
A powerful earthquake in the region claimed 13 lives in 1997 and damaged or destroyed priceless cultural heritage.
Vans with loudspeakers had driven around the town a month ago telling locals to evacuate their houses after seismologist Gioacchino Giuliani predicted a large quake was on the way, prompting the mayor's anger.
Mr Giuliani, who based his forecast on concentrations of radon gas around seismically active areas, was reported to police for 'spreading alarm' and was forced to remove his findings from the Internet.
Italy's Civil Protection agency held a meeting of the Major Risks Committee, grouping scientists charged with assessing such risks, in L'Aquila on March 31 to reassure the townspeople.
'The tremors being felt by the population are part of a typical sequence ... (which is) absolutely normal in a seismic area like the one around L'Aquila,' the civil protection agency said in a statement on the eve of that meeting.
As the media asked questions about the authorities' alleged failure to safeguard the population ahead of the quake, the head of the National Geophysics Institute dismissed Mr Giuliani's predictions.
'Every time there is an earthquake there are people who claim to have predicted it,' he said. 'As far as I know nobody predicted this earthquake with precision. It is not possible to predict earthquakes.'
Enzo Boschi said the real problem for Italy was a long-standing failure to take proper precautions despite a history of tragic quakes. -- REUTERS
