Italy tries to head off rumor about quake

ROME – Italian officials are going to extraordinary lengths to try to debunk an urban legend predicting a devastating earthquake in Rome today.

The country’s Civil Protection department has posted a dense information packet on its website stressing that quakes can’t be predicted and that Rome isn’t particularly at risk.

Toll-free numbers have been set aside at City Hall to field questions.

The national geophysics institute will open its doors to the public today to inform the curious and the concerned about seismology.

The effort is all designed to debunk a purported prediction of a major Roman quake on May 11, 2011, attributed to self-taught seismologist Raffaele Bendandi, who died in 1979. The only problem is Bendandi never made the prediction, says Paola Lagorio, president of the association in charge of Bendandi’s documentation.

Lagorio insists that there is no evidence in Bendandi’s papers of any such precise a prediction and blames unidentified forces who want to “frighten people and create this situation of panic that is attributed to a prediction Bendandi never made.”

Despite her denials and the concerted effort by seismologists to calm nerves, some Romans are taking precautionary measures. Italian agriculture lobby Coldiretti reported Tuesday that a survey of farm-hotels around the capital indicate many Romans are leaving town for the day.