ROME — A pair of “apocalyptic” aftershocks shook central Italy on Wednesday, crumbling buildings, knocking out power and sending panicked residents into the rain-drenched streets just two months after a powerful earthquake killed nearly 300 people. "Many houses collapsed," the mayor of hard-hit Ussita, Marco Rinaldi, told Sky TG24. The Civil Protection agency, the centralized service which is receiving infromation from dozens of tiny settlements scattered across the area, say that older buildings have been damaged, or collapsed entirely, but that no injuries have been reported. The second of the two quakes Wednesday -- with a magnitude 6.1 -- was 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) north of Visso and 58 kilometers (36 miles) from Perugia, the US Geological Survey reported. Visso is about 110 miles northeast of Rome and 50 miles north of Amatrice, the small town that lost about 270 residents when a magnitude 6.2 quake hit on August 24. Wednesday’s temblors were felt from Perugia in Umbria to the capital Rome to the central Italian town of L’Aquila, which was struck by a deadly quake in 2009. Hide Caption 15 of 15

Della Longa said buildings that fell in the Amatrice area have been unoccupied since the August quake. The quakes, shaking buildings in Rome some 230 kilometers (145 miles) southwest of the epicenter, were actually aftershocks of the magnitude 6.2 earthquake from two months ago.
A series of earthquakes strikes a region of Central Italy already impacted by a major quake in August. Many buildings are damaged or destroyed across several towns.