Earthquakes are some of the most famously unpredictable events out there. It's like trying to predict an avalanche, you
know that one is on the cards, but it could start in anything from 20 seconds to months in the future. That's why, with avalanches, we take the initiative and encourage them under controlled conditions, thereby removing that margin of error. We are not afforded such luxury in the case of Tectonic events.
Maybe some of these Italian politicians should go live in the more active areas of Japan or along the San Andreas fault for a while, maybe take a tour of the facility in LA and see for themselves just how much effort is being put into predicting these events, they might understand that Geological prediction is far from a precise art.
Edit: Though, in fairness, Italy has an unfortunate historical legacy of not really 'getting' the risk of doing things like building towns at the foot of a volcano
