PANAMA CITY — A shallow magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck south-central Panama on Friday afternoon, collapsing buildings and roads in the center of the country and injuring at least 27 people, though no deaths had been reported, Panamanian authorities said, according to AFP and BBC News.
The quake hit just before 3 p.m. local time at a depth of about 12 kilometers, with its epicenter about 10 kilometers from the remote community of Pitaloza Arriba, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, which estimated that about 4.6 million people felt moderate to severe shaking. A second powerful quake, of magnitude 6.6, followed amid a string of aftershocks, DW reported; Panama’s geosciences institute has recorded more than 80 aftershocks, AFP said.
One side of the cathedral in Penonomé collapsed along with one of its spires, and footage showed collapsed buildings in Penonomé and Soná, the BBC said. Local outlets reported that the colonial-era Church of San Atanasio in Los Santos province, a national heritage site since 1938, also collapsed, according to DW. The National Civil Protection System said the 27 injured all had minor injuries, and Health Minister Fernando Boyd said the hardest-hit areas were the provinces of Herrera, Coclé and Los Santos, AFP reported.
“We are facing a major disaster,” President José Raúl Mulino said, adding that some roads had “completely collapsed,” according to The Guardian. Mulino traveled to Penonomé to coordinate the response and urged calm, writing on X that what happened “should not be used to generate alarm and disorder.”
Tsunami alerts issued for Panama and neighboring countries were lifted after the U.S. Tsunami Warning System said there was no threat. The Panama Canal Authority said the waterway was operating normally, Tocumen International Airport reopened after briefly suspending flights, and electricity provider Naturgy reported outages in six provinces. The USGS estimated economic losses could reach 1 to 10 percent of Panama’s gross domestic product, The Guardian said. The quake struck days before Panama was due to hold a national earthquake evacuation drill on Monday.
Sources: AFP, BBC News, The Guardian, DW
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