Scientists on trial for not warning of devastating earthquake

Seven scientists and other experts were indicted on manslaughter charges yesterday for not warning residents before a devastating earthquake that killed more than 300 people in central Italy in 2009.

Defence lawyers condemned the charges, saying it is impossible to predict earthquakes.

Judge Giuseppe Romano Gargarella ordered the members of the government's Great Risks commission, which evaluates potential for natural disasters, to go on trial in September.

The judge was quoted as saying the defendants "gave inexact, incomplete and contradictory information" about whether smaller tremors felt by L'Aquila residents in the weeks and months before the 6 April, 2009 quake should have constituted grounds for a quake warning.

The 6.3-magnitude quake killed 308 people in and around the medieval town, which was largely reduced to rubble.

"As we all know, quakes aren't predictable," said Marcello Melandri, defending Enzo Boschi, head of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.