Panama was hit on Friday by two powerful earthquakes, one measured at 7.7 and the other at 6.6, and the shaking sent people into the streets, damaged buildings and forced evacuations in several central provinces. The first quake was later pinned at 7.7 after the USGS first reported it at 8, then revised it to 7.6 before updating it again.
The first shock struck about 10 kilometers southwest of Pitaloza Arriba in Herrera at a depth of 10 kilometers, and it was felt in Colombia as well. Rosendo Domínguez, who was inside when the ground moved, said the quake threw things around his kitchen and that everyone was outside, scared. “Lo sentimos muy fuerte,” he said in effect, adding that they were safe but frightened.
That fear was fed by what came next. Sismologists at the Universidad de Panamá counted more than 45 aftershocks, including tremors of 5.8, 5.5 and 5.2, keeping the ground moving long after the first jolt. José Raúl Mulino urged calm on Friday, saying what happened should not be used to create alarm or disorder.
Damage was reported in Veraguas, Herrera, Los Santos and Penonomé, while Omar Smith said there were no reports of damage in Ciudad de Panamá. In Penonomé, one person was struck by debris from a partially collapsed structure, the cathedral in the main square had a partial collapse and cracks, and the government building and the hotel Dos Continentes were damaged. The Iglesia de San Atanasio in Los Santos also collapsed, and large cracks crossed roads in Veraguas. No deaths were reported immediately.
The sharpest friction in the first hours was the scale of the quake itself. It began as an 8.0 reading, then was cut back to 7.6, and later raised to 7.7, a reminder that the first numbers after a major tremor can move as instruments are checked and data is refined. That uncertainty did not change what people on the ground already knew: this was a strong earthquake sequence, not a single isolated shake.
Aeropuerto Internacional de Tocumen temporarily suspended operations and activated evacuation plans, then said flights would resume once safety conditions were verified. At the same time, the Autoridad del Canal de Panamá said its operations continued normally while technical teams inspected facilities for possible damage. The wider significance is hard to miss: this was the biggest shaking to hit Panama in years, and it arrived with enough force to disrupt travel, rattle public buildings and send officials into immediate safety checks.
Panama has lived with earthquakes before, especially near its border with Costa Rica, but the last major one to cause widespread damage came in 1991, when a magnitude 7.4 quake with its epicenter in Costa Rica killed 23 people in the Bocas del Toro border region, injured 559 and left thousands homeless. Friday’s sequence did not immediately produce that scale of loss, but it reopened the same question for residents and authorities alike: how much damage is still hidden behind cracked walls, closed roads and inspections still under way?
