The article is very short on useful information. Any judgement based on this data would be highly speculative.
From the article it seems like the scientists did a wrong prediction and now go to jail for it.
What really counts is whether the scientists adequately explained the odds of the incident to happen to the government official. The scientists are the experts (even when their knowledge is poor) the official is most certainly not. According to Seth Stein it would boil down to: We have a 1:50 chance of a larger quake to happen. If it happens many people are going to die. Now it´s your choice whether you evacuate.
Would you bet the lives of people you are responsible for on not drawing the ace of spades from a shuffled poker deck? That has about the same odds.