Panama Earthquake: 7.7 Tremor Damages Buildings, Prompts Evacuations

A magnitude seven point seven earthquake struck Panama's central provinces on Friday afternoon, collapsing buildings near the epicentre and sending thousands of residents and office workers into the streets, according to the United States Geological Survey. The Panama earthquake caused no immediately reported deaths, though several injuries were confirmed and emergency crews were still assessing the damage on Saturday.

The main shock hit at about twelve fifty-six in the afternoon local time, with its epicentre roughly twelve kilometres west-southwest of Pitaloza Arriba in Herrera province, at a depth of twelve point six kilometres, the survey said. The United States Geological Survey first estimated the Panama earthquake at magnitude eight before revising it to seven point six and finally to seven point seven. A second Panama earthquake of magnitude six point six struck near Rio Grande later in the afternoon, followed overnight by a magnitude six tremor near La Tronosa. Seismologists at the University of Panama recorded more than forty-five aftershocks, many too weak to feel.

Damage concentrated in central provinces

The damage was concentrated in the central provinces of Veraguas, Herrera and Los Santos, Omar Smith of the National Civil Protection Service said on the Telemetro Reporta news channel, as reported by the Associated Press. Smith said there were no reports of damage in the capital, which is known for its hundreds of high-rise towers.

In Penonome, about one hundred fifty kilometres from Panama City, the Panama earthquake partially collapsed the cathedral on the district's main square and damaged the governor's office building and the Dos Continentes hotel, Smith said. In Los Santos province, the colonial-style Church of San Atanasio also collapsed; it had been declared a National Historic Heritage Site in nineteen thirty-eight. In Veraguas province, large fissures opened along roadways. Several injuries were reported, including one person struck by debris from a partially collapsed structure in Penonome. No casualties were immediately confirmed.

Rosendo Dominguez, a sixty-year-old resident of Herrera province, told the Associated Press by phone that the shaking "knocked things over in the kitchen" and that frightened residents had gathered outside.

Evacuations, airport closure and the canal

In Panama City, shaken residents and office workers evacuated high-rise buildings and gathered in streets and open spaces, many of them struggling to find transport home as traffic snarled. The Panama earthquake was felt strongly in the capital despite the epicentre lying about two hundred kilometres away.

Tocumen International Airport, one of the region's busiest airports with more than twenty million travellers in twenty twenty-five, temporarily suspended operations and activated evacuation plans, resuming flights only after security checks were completed. The Panama Canal Authority said in a statement that operations were continuing normally along the global trade route, with specialised technical teams inspecting facilities for possible damage.

President Jose Raul Mulino travelled to Penonome and called for calm on social media, writing that the earthquake "should not be used to cause alarm or disorder."

Tsunami alerts and a region on edge

The United States National Weather Service issued a tsunami warning after the Panama earthquake for the coasts of Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Guatemala, saying waves of three to nine feet above tide level could strike some coastal areas of Panama. Chile placed its distant Easter Island, about three thousand five hundred kilometres off the mainland, under a precautionary advisory.

Colombia's President Abelardo de la Espriella, whose own country was recently hit by earthquakes, wrote on social media that Panama was not alone and offered his country's full support and willingness to provide whatever assistance was needed. The United States Embassy in Panama said it was closely monitoring the aftermath and accounting for the welfare of its citizens in the country.

Panama sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," a forty-thousand-kilometre arc of volcanoes and fault lines where most of the world's earthquakes occur. Earthquakes are common in the country, particularly along its border with Costa Rica and its Pacific coast, because of the interaction of the Cocos, Nazca and Caribbean tectonic plates, according to the Associated Press.

The last major earthquake to cause widespread damage in Panama struck in nineteen ninety-one: a magnitude seven point four quake centred in nearby Costa Rica that killed twenty-three people, injured five hundred fifty-nine and left thousands homeless in the border region of Bocas del Toro. Panama's relative luck this time was partly a matter of geography. A United States Geological Survey exposure estimate suggested roughly forty-three thousand Panamanians lived in areas with at least severe exposure to the shaking, a fraction of the more than one million caught in the zones of recent quakes in Venezuela and Colombia, Reuters reported.

Friday's event is the strongest Panama earthquake since nineteen ninety-one.

Damage assessments and emergency response operations were continuing on Saturday in the communities hit hardest by the Panama earthquake.