A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck central Panama at 12:56 p.m. local time on Friday, Oct. 9, injuring at least 27 people, collapsing roads and buildings in several provinces and briefly triggering tsunami warnings across the eastern Pacific.
No deaths had been reported as of Saturday, but the toll could change. The U.S. Geological Survey rated its estimated impact “red”, its highest alert level, and Panamanian officials said rescuers were trying to reach cut-off communities.
The USGS event page puts the quake at a depth of about 12.6 kilometres, roughly 12 kilometres west-southwest of the remote community of Pitaloza Arriba, in the south of the country. The agency recorded 713 “felt” reports. Early estimates varied, with some agencies first reporting 7.6 or 8.0 before the figure settled at 7.7.
President José Raúl Mulino said some roads had “completely collapsed” and described the situation as “a major disaster”, according to SBS News. He also urged calm on X, writing that “what happened should not be used to cause alarm or disorder”, as reported by Al Jazeera.
Rene Garcia of Panama’s National Civil Protection System told Agence France-Presse there were no reported fatalities so far, according to Euronews. The figure of at least 27 injured is also reported by Euronews, which described the count as reported rather than confirmed.
Omar Smith of the civil protection service told the Panamanian broadcaster Telemetro that the damage was concentrated in the central provinces of Veraguas, Herrera and Los Santos. Local footage showed a tower of a cathedral in Penonomé, in Coclé province, collapsing and the facade of a hotel falling onto a car. Health Minister Fernando Boyd said some areas could not be reached by road and that officials were trying to arrange access by air.
Tsunami warnings were issued for Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico, and were lifted several hours later. The Panama Canal Authority said shipping was unaffected and the waterway was operating “as normal”. Tocumen International Airport in Panama City briefly suspended operations for checks before flights resumed, according to reports relayed by Al Jazeera and SBS, and schools were closed nationwide.
The USGS also listed later regional quakes of magnitude 6.6 and 6.0 within about 11 hours of the main shock, and local authorities have reported dozens of aftershocks. Salomon Andion, 46, who evacuated a 15-storey building in Panama City, told reporters the shaking was “very strong and prolonged”.
Earthquakes of this size are unusual in central Panama, where seismic activity is more often centred in the west, near Chiriquí province, SBS reported. Al Jazeera said the quake was at least the fourth above magnitude 7.0 in Latin America this year, after twin quakes in northern Venezuela in June that killed at least 6,500 people and a magnitude 7.4 quake in Colombia in August that killed at least 289.
Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella wrote on X that “Panama is not alone” and offered whatever help was needed. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was “closely monitoring” the situation.
For Canadians, the Government of Canada’s Panama travel advice currently tells travellers to take normal security precautions, with higher caution in parts of Colón and Panama City and no travel to Darién province south of Metetí. The page notes that western Panama is in an active seismic zone, that a tsunami can follow a nearby earthquake within minutes and that the risk can last several hours. It advises following local authorities. Canadians in Panama who need help can contact the Embassy of Canada in Panama City or the Emergency Watch and Response Centre in Ottawa. This report could not confirm whether any Canadians were affected, and the page does not say whether it has been updated since the quake.
The death toll, the number of injured and the extent of the damage are expected to be clarified as rescuers reach isolated towns such as Tonosí in Los Santos province, which was reported cut off by land. Canada News Media will update this report as official figures are released.
Via Al Jazeera, Euronews and SBS News, with figures from the U.S. Geological Survey. The injury count and aftershock numbers are as reported by those outlets and have not been independently confirmed.
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