In a subsequent inquiry of the handling of the disaster, seven members of the Italian National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks were accused of giving "inexact, incomplete and contradictory" information about the danger of the tremors prior to the main quake.

[10][11] On 22 October 2012, six scientists and one ex-government official were convicted of multiple manslaughter for downplaying the likelihood of a major earthquake six days before it took place.

[16] Earthquakes mark the history of L'Aquila, a city built on the bed of an ancient lake, providing a soil structure that amplifies seismic waves.

The third floor of Forte Spagnolo, the 16th-century castle housing the National Museum of Abruzzo, collapsed, as did the cupola of the 18th-century Baroque church of St Augustine, damaging L'Aquila's state archives.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi caused a controversy when he said, in an interview to the German station n-tv, that the homeless victims should consider themselves to be on a "camping weekend" – "They have everything they need, they have medical care, hot food... Of course, their current lodgings are a bit temporary.

[51] According to the Italian National Geophysics Institute director Boschi, the aftershock epicentres migrated south-east, thus lessening the risk of further major shocks near populated areas.

Aftershocks caused safety problems for rescue crews searching for injured victims trapped in precarious structures in the historic center of L'Aquila, a medieval city.

Using cranes and backhoes to remove loose bricks and broken timbers, the crews were aware that any aftershock could have triggered the collapse of seriously damaged walls or parapets.

All Italian mobile companies (TIM,[54] Vodafone,[55] Wind,[citation needed] 3[citation needed]), and some MVNOs,[56] sent free minutes and credit to all their pre-paid customers in Abruzzo, suspended billing to all post-paid customers and extended their coverage with additional mobile base stations to cover homeless camps.

Poste Italiane sent to homeless camps some mobile units acting as Postal Office, to allow people to withdraw money from their accounts as well as their retirement.

[57] Many companies, such as pay-tv Sky, suspended billing to all customers in Abruzzo, and offered some decoders to homeless camps to allow them to follow the funerals and the news.

Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi refused foreign aid for the emergency, saying that Italians were "proud people" and had sufficient resources to deal with the crisis.

[60] Aid was offered by[61] Austria, Brazil, Croatia, the European Union, France, Germany, Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Israel, Portugal,[62] Iran,[63] North Macedonia,[64] Mexico,[65] Russia, Serbia,[66] Slovenia,[67] Switzerland,[68] Tunisia, the Turkish Red Crescent,[69] Ukraine,[70] and the United States.

[71] Aid was also offered by various organisations, companies, sport clubs and celebrities including ACF Fiorentina,[72] Carla Bruni,[73] Madonna,[74] S.S.C.

[77] On 20 November 2009 in Brussels, Pawel Samecki and Guido Bertolaso who, at that time, were European Commissioner for Regional Policy and commander in chief of the Italian Civil Protection department respectively, signed an agreement to provide 493.7 million euros from EU solidarity fund to help reconstruction in Abruzzo.

He was accused of being alarmist[82] by the Director of the Civil Defence, Guido Bertolaso, and forced to remove his findings from the Internet (old data and descriptions are still online).

[85] Enzo Boschi, the head of the Italian National Geophysics Institute declared: Every time there is an earthquake there are people who claim to have predicted it.

[86]Scientists have studied Earthquake predictions based on radon emissions since the 1970s, but enthusiasm for the method has faded due to inconsistent results.

On 7 April, a few hours after the main earthquake, journalist Luca Spinelli stated:[88] The transfers of money necessitated by such a big tragedy are huge: much the same as the cost of running a war.

A region which "attracted the attention of some Camorra and Sacra Corona Unita associates too", according to Franco Forgione, President of the Parliamentary Antimafia Commission in 2007.

A region which, according to the Antimafia District Public Prosecutor's Office of L'Aquila, hosts part of the hidden treasure of mafia boss Vito Ciancimino, reckoned to be around 600 million euros, a region which has seen many recent arrests for mafia infiltration; infiltration in contracts, building permits, the health system, the very things that will be needed for the reconstruction.The week following the earthquake, on 14 April, journalist and writer Roberto Saviano, author of the bestseller Gomorrah, wrote:[89] Data demonstrates that the Camorra invasion (in Abruzzo) during these years was enormous.

On 10 September, Diego León Montoya Sánchez, the drug dealer deemed among the ten most wanted by the FBI, had one of his bases in Abruzzo.

Nicola di Villano, cashier in a criminal-entrepreneurial organisation led by the Zagaria family of Casapesenna, repeatedly managed to escape capture and it was discovered that his shelter was located in the Abruzzo National Park, where he had the ability to move freely.

[...] Behind it all, obviously, the Camorra clans.In the following weeks, even major Italian institutions talked about the danger of criminal infiltration, noting that these risks would have been avoided with adequate supervision and inspections.

The mayor felt this offered “an element around which to rebuild the social fabric of our community.”[92] On the morning of 10 April 2009, which was also Good Friday, a state funeral was held for 205 of the 291 victims of the earthquake.

In addition Friday was declared a national day of mourning, with flags flying at half staff, shops lowering their shutters and flights stopping at the airport for one minute of silence.

[104] The seven members of the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks who were convicted were: Franco Barberi, head of Serious Risks Commission; Enzo Boschi, former president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology; Giulio Lorenzo Selvaggi, director of National Earthquake Centre; Gian Michele Calvi, director of European Centre for Earthquake Engineering; Claudio Eva, physicist; Mauro Dolce, director of the Civil Protection Agency's earthquake risk office; Bernardo De Bernardinis, former vice-president of Civil Protection Agency's technical department.

[11] The prosecutors cited a scientific opinion that the low-level tremors ahead of 6 April quake were typical of the seismic activity preceding major convulsions, but the defendants had classified them as a "normal geological phenomenon".

[12] They were criticised in court for being "falsely reassuring" and Judge Marco Billi gave them a six-year jail sentence on 22 October 2012,[10] reasoning that they had provided "an assessment of the risks that was incomplete, inept, unsuitable, and criminally mistaken".

Professor Francesco Giovanni Maria Stoppa, a member of the commission until 2003, said: "They should have given information proportional to our knowledge, which in 2009 spotlighted a criticality in L'Aquila.