2015 Volume 11 Pages 50-67
What disaster sciences are expected by the society is to prevent or mitigate future natural disasters, and therefore it is necessary to foresee natural disasters. However, various constraints often make the foreseeing difficult so that there is a high incertitude in the social contribution of disaster sciences. If scientists overstep this limitation, they will be held even criminally responsible. The L’Aquila trial in Italy is such a recent example and so we have performed data collections, hearing investigations, analyses of the reasons for judgment, etc., to explore the incertitude of disaster sciences and scientists' responsibilities. As a result, we concluded that the casualties during the L’Aquila earthquake were mainly due to a careless “safety declaration” by the vice-director of the Civil Protection Agency, where the incertitude of disaster sciences had never been considered. In addition, news media which reported only this “safety declaration” were also seriously responsible for the casualties. The accused other than the vice-director were only morally responsible, because their meeting remarks included poor communication in disaster sciences but those were not reported to the citizens in advance to the L’Aquila earthquake.
