Italy went to extraordinary lengths to try to dismiss an urban legend predicting a devastating earthquake in Rome yesterday.

The Civil Protection Department posted masses of information on its website stressing that quakes cannot be predicted and that the city is not particularly at risk. Toll-free numbers were set aside at City Hall to field questions and the National Institute of Geophysics opened its doors to the public to inform the curious and the concerned about seismology.

The efforts were all designed to disprove a purported prediction of a major Roman quake on May 11, 2011, attributed to self-taught seismologist Raffaele Bendandi, who died in 1979. However, Paola Lagorio, president of the association in charge of Mr Bendandi’s documentation, insisted that there is no evidence in Mr Bendandi’s papers of any such precise prediction and blamed unidentified forces who want to “frighten people and create this situation of panic that is attributed to a prediction Mr Bendandi never made”.

Still, despite her denials and the concerted effort by seismologists to calm nerves, some Romans took precautionary measures. Italian agriculture lobby Coldiretti said that a survey of farm-hotels around the capital indicated that many Romans were leaving town for the day.

“One cannot speak of an exodus, but there are cases of entire families that have decided to leave the city for the country,” it said. Officials have blamed the media and viral rumour-mongering on the internet for fuelling fears.

The Rome newspaper La Repubblica headlined its Rome section “Holiday and exodus, earthquake psychosis”, reporting both official denials of a quake and predictions that many offices would be empty yesterday.

Consumer group Codacons lodged a formal complaint with Rome prosecutors denouncing the media that added to the alarm.

That said, there probably will be an earthquake. On average, there are 30 earthquakes registered every day in Italy, according to the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology. Rome, however, has only a moderate seismic risk compared to more volatile regions in the Apennine mountains.