ფრიად საინტერესო ფაქტი ამ ტრაგედიასთან დაკავშირებით.
იტალიელმა მეცნიერმა მიწისძვრამდე ორიოდე კვირის წინ გააფრთხილა, რომ დიდი მიწისძვრა იყო მოსალოდნელი ამ ქალაქის მიდამოებში. ის ეყრდნობოდა ამ რაიონში მზარდ რადონის გაზის კონცეტრაციას, მაგრამ ეს ხელისუფლებამ მეცნიერულ საფუძველს მოკლებულად მიიჩნია, მეცნიერი ხალხში პანიკის დათესვაში დაადანაშაულა და აიძულა, რომ საკუთარი საიტიდან ეს გაფრთხილება წაეშალა.
ყველაფერ ამას ემატება ისიც, რომ ამ რაიონში იანვრის თვიდან საკმაოდ ინტენსიური სეისმური აქტივობა დაფიქსირდა.
ამავე დროს ბევრ წამყვან სეისმოლოგს მიაჩნია, რომ რადონის გაზის კონცენტრაციის მიხედვით მიწისძვრის წინასწარმეტყველება ყოველთვის ეფექტური არაა.
აი ეს უფრო ვრცლად
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/ar...preading_alarm/ROME - An Italian scientist predicted a major earthquake around L'Aquila weeks before disaster struck the city yesterday, killing more than 150 people, but he was reported to authorities for spreading panic.
The government yesterday insisted the warning, by seismologist Gioacchino Giuliani, had no scientific foundation, but Giuliani said he had been vindicated and wanted an apology.
The first tremors in the region were felt in mid-January and continued at regular intervals, creating mounting alarm in the medievаl city, about 70 miles northeast of Rome.
Vans with loudspeakers drove around the town a month ago telling locals to evacuate their houses after Giuliani, from the National Institute of Astrophysics, predicted a large quake, prompting the mayor's anger.
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. "Now there are people who have to apologize to me and who will have what has happened on their conscience," Giuliani told the website of the daily La Repubblica.
Giuliani, who lives in L'Aquila and developed his findings while working at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in the surrounding Abruzzo region, said he was helpless to act on Sunday as it became clear to him the quake was imminent.
"I didn't know who to turn to. I had been put under investigation for saying there was going to be an earthquake."
As the media asked whether, in light of his warnings, the government had protected the population properly, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi seemed on the defensive at a news conference.
He said people should concentrate on relief efforts for now. "We can discuss afterwards about the predictability of earthquakes," he said.
Italy's civil protection agency held a meeting of the Major Risks Committee, a grouping of 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 agency said in a statement on the eve of that meeting.
It said it saw no reason for alarm but was nonetheless carrying out "continuous monitoring and attention."
The head of the agency, Guido Bertolaso, referred back to that meeting at yesterday's joint news conference with Berlusconi.
"There is no possibility of predicting an earthquake; that is the view of the international scientific community," he said.
Ross Stein, a geophysicist with the US Geological Survey, said yesterday the scientific consensus is that short-term earthquake prediction is not yet possible. He said that using radon gas detection to detect earthquakes had been studied extensively in the 1970s and '80s, but was found to be an inaccurate method for predicting quakes.
"Yes, some earthquakes are preceded by some kind of radon gas anomaly; others aren't," Stein said. "There are lots of false alarms, lots of spikes in radon without earthquakes following," and also earthquakes without any changes in radon.
Stein said if Giuliani publishes his results, the community can evаluate whether he had really predicted the quake or was just lucky. "There's a long history of lots of shotgun predictions and by random chance one of them will prove out, but that doesn't really mean it's reliable and dependable," Stein said.
Enzo Boschi, the head of Italy's National Geophysics Institute, said the real problem for Italy was a longstanding failure to take proper precautions despite a history of tragic quakes.
"We have earthquakes but then we forget and do nothing. It's not in our culture to take precautions or build in an appropriate way in areas where there could be strong earthquakes," he said.
Carolyn Johnson of the Globe staff contributed to this story.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
This post has been edited by caliber on 13 Apr 2009, 00:38 Gandhi once said, "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win."
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