Subscribe to EIR Online

PRESS RELEASE


Tsunami Deaths and Damages
Could Have Been Avoided,
Italian Scientist Tells EIR

April 1, 2011 (EIRNS)—Japanese scientists had detected precursors of a large earthquake on March 1, ten days before it struck, Professor Pier Francesco Biagi told EIR today. Biagi is the leading Italian researcher on Earthquake precursors. He pointed out that if a government agency had been in place, evacuation measures could have been implemented and the tsunami would have claimed no victims and caused no damage, including at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

The warning would have not stopped the tsunami and the destruction of the pumps, he stated, but the advanced warning would have provided the time to shut off the reactors ten days in advance of the earthquake, instead of ten minutes, as actually happened. This could have ensured the safe cooling of the reactors, he noted. Biagi said that his Japanese colleagues will present the evidence at the coming General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union, which will take place in Vienna April 4-8.

It is not clear whether Japanese scientists did warn the government, but that nothing was done, or, more probably, whether their warnings were turned down by the "scientific community."

Prof. Biagi welcomed Lyndon LaRouche's proposal to restart the U.S. National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (USNEHRP), and to integrate NASA into it. He said, however, that the original flaw of establishing a deadline for results, must be corrected. You cannot, say, that "in ten years we will analyze results, which were the conditions imposed on the USNEHRP, and, on the basis of those conditions, that, we will decide whether the funding should continue." He said it must be an open-ended program: it could be the case that in ten years, not enough results have been collected, because of a low level of activity; but it could be that enough results would be achieved in only three years, because of a high level of activity.

If he were the head of NASA and could decide on programs to finance for earthquake precursors, Biagi said he would immediately start a "very selected program of nano-satellites." The first nano-satellite would cost one million euros, and each successive one 600,000 euros. In reality this amount is peanuts, but there is no government financing of that. The Italians tried a couple of years ago to promote a European program, but they did not succeed.

Governments prefer to finance other programs, such as "the coupling of polar bears," he said ironically.

France was the only nation that sent a satellite in orbit specifically for earthquake research, with its Demeter satellite. Its data were "very interesting," Biagi said.

We are definitely in a phase of high level earthquake activity, Biagi observed. It is evident that seismic cycles coincide with sun activity.

Research of precursors is currently done in very few countries, and these are, in order importance of programs: Japan, Italy, Greece and Russia.

Those scientist groups meet regularly and coordinate their activity. Biagi works closely with Hayakawa and Molchanov, among others. The problem is that none of those programs are government-financed and scientists must organize private financing, sometimes in quite ingenious ways.

The Italians are collecting and evaluating data detected by a network of transmitters throughout the world, which are otherwise used for other purposes. They collect data on electromagnetic activity in advance of earthquakes. They are able to forecast with ten days of lead time, and with a probability of more than 80% accuracy, that a major earthquake will hit a certain region. Of course, the locality cannot be indicated with absolute precision, but within approximately a 100 km radius.

Biagi's Japanese colleagues had such evidence on March 1, using data collected by a laboratory conducting experiments on neutrino physics.

Back to top

clear
clear
clear