ROME - WILL Rome crumble on Wednesday? Thousands of alarmed Italians are fleeing the capital amid rumours that a seismologist predicted that a devastating earthquake will strike the Eternal City.
Scholars poring over the works of Raffaele Bendandi, who died in 1979, inferred that the self-taught seismologist had calculated that a massive earthquake would rock Rome on May 11, 2011, though the date is not explicitly written.
The president of the Bendandi Foundation tried to quash the rumour, saying: 'I can say with complete certainty that in Bendandi's documents there is no trace of a prophecy about an earthquake in Rome on May 11, 2011.
That didn't stop Italians from panicking, notably because the controversial Bendandi is credited with having correctly predicted earthquakes during his lifetime on the basis of planetary alignments. Police have been flooded with alarmed calls, and Rome's city hall decided to open a toll-free number 'to calm the citizenry', an official said.
The flow of people to the outskirts of Rome has also spiked, according to Italy's main farmers association Coldiretti. Across the capital, a noticeable number of shops are shuttered with notices citing vacation or illness, the ANSA news agency reported.
The scare comes just two years after a major earthquake hit the ancient city of L'Aquila, only around 100km from Rome, killing 308 people. To allay fears, Rome's Sapienza University is offering a conference on Wednesday titled: 'Waiting for the Earthquake: Knowing About Earthquakes and Understanding Their Impact to Learn How to Protect Yourselves'. -- AFP
Lasers beamed from space have found that glaciers in the Antarctic and Greenland are melting faster then previously predicted, according to scientists. The findings are said to be ''the most comprehensive picture'' yet of the decline and an important step towards more accurate predictions for future sea-level rise. Analysis of millions of Nasa satellite measurements from both regions' vast ice sheets shows the most serious ice loss is a result of glaciers speeding up where they flow into the sea. The ''dynamic thinning'' of glaciers now occurs on all Greenland latitudes, has intensified on key Antarctic coastlines, is penetrating far inside the ice sheets and is spreading as ice shelves thin by ''ocean-driven melt''.
The work by the University of Bristol and the British Antarctic Survey is published today in the science journal, Nature. Bristol's Laura Edwards, one of the authors, said: ''This study highlights just how important satellite measurements are for observing change on the scale of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets.
''There is realistically no other way of obtaining such comprehensive coverage, and what we see is that many more glaciers have speeded up than we'd expected. ''We really need these measurements because we don't yet understand what the ice sheets are going to do in the future, but we know that they'll have a big effect on sea level.''
These prophecies are worded so ambiguously that they can be interpreted any way possible. After the event has occurred, the happening is used to affirm the belief that the prophecy was correct. And if matters do not unfold as expected, then it is assumed that people were unable to comprehend the meanings of the prophecies. So much for a prophecy if you are using it in hindsight. 😆
But I like Trelawney's prophecies.
Edited by PhoeniXof_Hades - 12 years ago
