A handful of people were treated for slight injuries or anxiety at area hospitals in the most affected regions.
A pair of strong aftershocks shook central Italy late Wednesday, crumbling churches and buildings, knocking out power and sending panicked residents into the rain-drenched streets just two months after a powerful earthquake killed nearly 300 people.- Wednesday's temblors were felt from Perugia in Umbria to the capital Rome and as far north as Veneto. It also shook the central Italian city of L'Aquila, which was struck by a deadly quake in 2009.
- xperts say even relatively modest quakes that have shallow depths can cause significant damage because the seismic waves are closer to the surface. But seismologist Gianluca Valensise said a 10-kilometer depth is within the norm for an Apennine temblor.
- Italy's national vulcanology center said the first quake had an epicenter in the Macerata area, near Perugia in the quake-prone Apennine Mountain chain. The US Geological Survey put the epicenter near Visso, 170 kilometers (105 miles) northeast of Rome, and said it had a depth of some 10 kilometers (six miles).
- Schools were closed in several towns Thursday as a precaution and a handful of hospitals were evacuated after suffering damage.
- A church crumbled in the ancient Perugian town of Norcia, famed for its Benedictine monastery and its cured meats. A bell-tower damaged on Aug. 24 fell and crushed a building in Camerino, the ANSA news agency said.
- Because many residents had already left their homes with plans to spend the night in their cars or elsewhere, they weren't home when the second aftershock hit two hours later, possibly saving lives, officials said.
- The first struck at 7:10 p.m. and carried a magnitude of 5.4. But the second one was eight times stronger at 6.1, according to the US Geological Survey.
- The temblors were actually aftershocks to the Aug. 24 quake that struck a broad swath of central Italy, demolishing buildings in three towns and their hamlets, seismologists said.
- A handful of people were treated for slight injuries or anxiety at area hospitals in the most affected regions of Umbria and Le Marche, he said. A 73-year-old man died of a heart attack, possibly brought on by the quakes, local authorities told the ANSA news agency.
- But hours after the temblors hit, there were no reports of serious injuries or signs of people trapped in rubble, said the head of Italy's civil protection agency, Fabrizio Curcio.
A pair of strong aftershocks shook central Italy late Wednesday, crumbling churches and buildings, knocking out power and sending panicked residents into the rain-drenched streets just two months after a powerful earthquake killed nearly 300 people.
A handful of people were treated for slight injuries or anxiety at area hospitals in the most affected regions.
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