Italy quake takes building spared by earlier tremor

CAMERINO, Italy – The red brick Amatrice city hall resisted the devastating Aug. 24 quake that collapsed buildings all around it, only to crumble under the one-two punch of lesser jolts Wednesday night. They also brought down a centuries-old church tower in Camerino that had withstood both a quake in 1997 and the one in August. The twin aftershocks Wednesday may have exacted a lesser human toll than the August quake that preceded them, with no one killed under rubble and no reports of serious injuries. But they revealed structural weakness in the mountainous quake-prone zone straddling the Marche and Umbria regions, and added more psychological stress to already traumatized inhabitants.