Excerpt
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): Next, preparing for and predicting earthquakes.
California and other Western states conducted major earthquake drills today, just hours before a 3.9 tremor hit the San Francisco area. The quake was centered on the University of California, Berkeley, campus. There were no initial signs of major damage or injuries.
It was the fourth year California held the drill exercise and the largest yet, with more than eight million people participating.
To dramatize what could happen, authorities brought earthquake simulators to cities including Hayward, which sits on a fault expected to rupture again within the next few decades. The simulator was designed to mimic some of the effects of a 7.5 quake. Emergency officials demonstrated recommended responses, such as the drop-and-cover technique.
Preparing is one thing. Having the time and ability to warn people in advance is another.
NewsHour science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports on efforts to make those predictions after the Tohuku earthquake hit Japan earlier this year.
MILES O'BRIEN: It is a trial that has scientists all over the world in an uproar: six seismologists and one government official charged with manslaughter because they didn't predict this, the 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy, which killed more than 300.
Many here are comparing it to the trial of Galileo in 1633. He was found guilty of heresy for suggesting the Earth wasn't the center of the universe.
"It's not a Galileo trial," says a victim's lawyer. "But it is definitely a trial to find out if there were some responsibilities, some omissions, behaviors, or wrongdoings on the part of the scientists."
If found guilty, the accused could face 15 years in prison.
Should scientists be held criminally accountable for these kinds of things?
JIM MORI, Kyoto University: I don't think they should be if they are - if they are doing their job.
MILES O'BRIEN: Jim Mori is a professor of seismology at Kyoto University.
JIM MORI: We don't know enough to make a good prediction, and I don't think you can be held responsible for something that you really are not aware of.
MILES O'BRIEN: If any nation could predict an earthquake, it would likely be Japan. Scientists here have been hard at work on this elusive goal since the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which killed 145,000 and prompted the founding of the Earthquake Research Institute at Tokyo University.
COMMENT: Any people or nation that holds science responsible for NOT being able to predict nature is a display of ignorance, of not understanding that nobody can predict what Mother Nature will do.
No comments:
Post a Comment