I'm on two sides here.

Quote:

Defense lawyers said earthquakes could not be predicted, and even if they could, nothing could be done to prevent them. "If an event cannot be foreseen and, more to the point, cannot be avoided, it is hard to understand how there can be any suggestion of a failure to predict the risk," defense lawyer Franco Coppi said before the verdict was delivered. Prosecutors, who had only sought a four-year sentence, said they did not expect scientists to provide a precise forecast. But they argued that the commission had given "incomplete, imprecise and contradictory" information on the danger after a meeting on March 31, 2009, a few days before the earthquake.

Okay i'm not sure of the full story here but i am technically for it if they held any information regarding the quake aka they told no one and it happened. The first statement from the defense is technically wrong.

You can predict earthquakes but it is difficult. It depends on the location, frequency and severity. If those scientists had worked there for a good number of years then they'd probably know how often they occurred, the source and how bad they can get.

Before the actual event occurs earthquakes can be predicted. It's similar in the method they use to predict volcanic eruptions. There will be a small amount of activity on the needle which indicates some tremors which gradually worsen before the actual event. Seismologists also do monitor fault lines.

The thing about that and what they seem to be talking about in this case is that how do you know if it's the real thing and not just something happening in the crust.

The answer is you can't know. Earthquake prediction is possible but it isn't exact and that's how problems occur. This is why i said above if they didn't send warning at all - if you can't know for sure it's better to alert the authorities.

From reading this it looks like they'd didn't say at all. But like it says in the article and i explained: "smaller shocks were a "normal geological phenomenon." Hence the small movements in the needle and the difficulty of knowing if its the real thing.

It looks like they didn't say at all and in that case it is the scientists bad. It is there fault in the case of what the prosecutor said above in the quote - some sort of information would be good which they didn't provide.

In the scientists professional judgement they didn't regard it as the real thing. However it could have been their professional incompetency which made them fail to predict it.

Would i take them to jail for it? On the other hand i do say no. It is their fault in that they didn't provide information but it really is something which is difficult to predict and fuck...only within the last few decades did volcanic and seismic predictions really start to make progress.

So i can blame them and i can't blame them. If it came down to it i wouldn't have charged them but that's just how the law works.

EDIT: It's not like we just don't know. There are signs.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/monitoring/anss/
- if you are interested in earthquake prediction and mapping.