Giampaolo Giuliani: L'Aquila Earthquake YouTube Warning Ignored

Mr Giuliani told locals to evacuate their houses and posted a video on YouTube in which he said a build-up of radon gas around the seismically active area suggested a major earthquake was imminent.

Several tremors had been felt in the medieval city of L'Aquila, around 60 miles east of Rome, from mid-January onwards, and vans with loudspeakers had driven around the city spreading the warning.

But instead of heeding Mr Giuliani's warnings, the local authorities reported him to police for "spreading alarm" and he was told to remove his findings from the internet.

"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," Gavin Jones reports for Reuters.

Jones adds, "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."

A local news Web site in the region where the earthquake struck on Monday, Il Capoluogo d’Abruzzo, reports that Giampaolo Giuliani, who claims to have predicted the earthquake by measuring radon gas, wants a public apology from the authorities for ignoring his warning. The Italian news agency ANSA reports that other scientists think Mr. Giuliani’s radon gas method of earthquake prediction is not as accurate as he claims. 

In 1995, The Times reported that changes in radon gas levels “do not precede all earthquakes and cannot be used as a basis for issuing warnings to the public.” We just added more information to the post below based on an interview with Ross Stein of the United States Geological Survey, who called radon gas measurement one in a series of “great white hopes” for earthquake prediction that has been cast aside by most scientists.