Earthquake prediction on 6 April 2009, the Abruzzo region of central Italy was rocked by a magnitude M 6.3 earthquake. In the city of L'Aquila and surrounding area around 60,000 buildings collapsed or were seriously damaged, resulting in 308 deaths and 67,500 people left homeless. Around the same time, it was reported that Giampaolo Giuliani had predicted the earthquake, had tried to warn the public, but had been muzzled by the Italian government. Giampaolo Giuliani was a laboratory technician at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. As a hobby he had for some years been monitoring radon using instruments he had designed
Italian Week people who suffered the effects of the earthquake in Emilia Romagna. Italian Week proposed a series of event in which Italian culture was showcased in Italian gastronomy with the special guest Stefano Manfredi, chef at the Italian Alfresco Feast at the Treasury Hotel; in music, with the young and talented Italian acoustic guitarist Andrea Valeri and the Italo-American guitarist Art Phillips; in cinema with the screening of "Lezioni di Cioccolato" in collaboration with the Dante Alighieri Society, Casa Italia Community Centre and Griffith University; in traditional dance with Carmen Gentile, young Italian dance from Salerno; in Italian manufacture with an