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Rome shakes at quake prophecy

Updated on: 12 May,2011 08:14 AM IST |
Agencies |

Thousands run to countryside after prediction by a self-styled seismologist that a devastating earthquake would annihilate the city

Thousands run to countryside after prediction by a self-styled seismologist that a devastating earthquake would annihilate the city

Eternal City? Alarmed Italians are fleeing the capital after the quake
rumour. Pic/AFP
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According to some media reports, as many as 18 per cent of city employees called in sick and Rome's notorious traffic did appear lighter than normal for a Wednesday in May. One neighborhood that came down with a bad case of earthquake fever was Chinatown, where many shopkeepers kept stores shuttered and put up signs saying they were closed for weddings, inventories or "serious family problems."

The predictoru00a0
The fear was caused by a faction of the followers of Raffaele Bendandi, who died in 1979 at age 86. The self-proclaimed scientist, who used a mix of seismology and cosmology and claimed to have forecast numerous earthquakes, calculated that a "big one" would hit Rome on May 11, 2011. The majority of Romans were skeptical and indeed by mid day the earth had not moved.u00a0

Fascist link
Bendandi believed quakes were the result of combined movements of planets, the moon and the sun. 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 nearly precise prediction won him the nickname "earthquake predictor" in the media. Bendandi's fame grew and in 1927 he was awarded a knighthood by Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

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