I find this prediction somehow risible and yet being in Italy myself at the moment i hear about this allegedly incoming catastrophe on a daily basis and to be honest it is not a pleasant hearing.
For months Italian internet sites, blogs and social networks have been debating the work of Raffaele Bendandi, who claimed to have forecast numerous earthquakes and, according to notes from his studies, predicted a "big one" in Rome on May 11 2011.
The national television network RAI has run programs aimed at calming rising panic among Romans. The civil protection agency has issued statements reiterating the official scientific view that earthquakes can't be predicted.
Bendandi, who died in 1979 aged 86, believed earthquakes were the result of the combined movements of the planets, the moon and the sun and were perfectly predictable.
In 1923 he forecast a quake would hit the central Adriatic region of the Marches on January 2 the following year. He was wrong by two days but Italy's main newspaper Corriere della Sera still ran a front page article on "The man who forecasts earthquakes."
I confess i'm skeptic, but as i said all the constant buzz about it, over here, is not pleasant at all. How would you feel if this prediction was about the city where you live? Would you give it some credit?
