Alma Solis, Janet Sky and Gabriela Molina
Panama City: Two powerful 7.7 and 6.6 magnitude earthquakes and a series of aftershocks struck Panama Friday afternoon, collapsing buildings near the epicentre and prompting evacuations across the country, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The earlier quake, felt as far away as neighbouring Colombia, was centred about 10 kilometres southwest of the remote community of Pitaloza Arriba, in the central province of Herrera, the USGS said. It struck at a depth of 10 kilometres.
The USGS initially reported the first quake as magnitude 8, then revised it to 7.6 and later to 7.7.
Visibly shaken residents of Panama City gathered outside as they waited for news of the quake’s impact on Friday.
“We felt it very strongly. It knocked things over in the kitchen, but we’re OK, though we’re very scared,” Rosendo Domínguez, 60, who is from Herrera province, where the earthquake struck, told The Associated Press by phone. “Everyone is outside, scared.”
Multiple aftershocks continued to rattle Panama, including several measuring magnitude 5.8, 5.5 and 5.2. Seismologists at the University of Panama recorded more than 45 aftershocks, though many were too weak to be felt.
Images of crumbling buildings and deep fissures slicing through roads added to fears across a region battered by a series of devastating earthquakes in recent months.
Two back-to-back 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes roiled Venezuela’s La Guaira state in June, killing more than 6,500 people and leaving 17,000 homeless. In August, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in Colombia killed at least 289 people.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino called for calm on Friday, writing on X: “What happened should not be used to cause alarm or disorder.”
Omar Smith of the National Civil Protection Service said on the Telemetro Reporta news channel that damage was concentrated in the central provinces of Veraguas, Herrera and Los Santos. He said there were no reports of damage in the capital, which is known for its hundreds of skyscrapers.
Smith said several injuries have been reported, including one person struck by debris from a partially collapsed structure in the city of Penonomé, around 93 miles (150 km) from the capital. He confirmed a partial collapse and cracks at the cathedral in the district’s main square, as well as damage in the governor’s office building and the Dos Continentes hotel. No casualties were immediately reported.
Local news outlets also reported that the Church of San Atanasio, a colonial-style Catholic church in Panama’s Los Santos province, had collapsed. The church was declared a National Historic Heritage Site in 1938. Elsewhere, including in Veraguas province, large fissures ran along roadways.
Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, one of the region’s busiest airports with more than 20 million travellers in 2025, said it would temporarily suspend operations and activated evacuation plans. It said operations would resume once security conditions have been checked.
The Panama Canal Authority said operations were continuing normally along the key global trade route. It said its priority was the safety of employees, vessels and crews and that specialised technical teams were inspecting facilities for possible damage.
The last major earthquake to cause widespread damage in Panama struck in 1991. A magnitude 7.4 quake, centred in nearby Costa Rica killed 23 people, injured 559, and left thousands of people homeless in the border Bocas de Toro region.
Earthquakes are common, especially along Panama’s border with Costa Rica and its Pacific coast, because of the interaction of several tectonic plates, including Cocos, Nazca, and Caribbean plates.
Panama lies along the “Ring of Fire,” a 40,000-kilometre arc of volcanoes and fault lines around the Pacific Basin, where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.
The National Weather Service issued a tsunami warning Friday for the coasts of Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Guatemala. It warned that waves ranging from 3 to 9 feet (1 to 3 meters) above tide may occur in some coastal areas of Panama.
AP
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