Magnitude 7.7 earthquake rocks Panama – Mulino: “A major disaster”
A powerful quake and a 6.6 aftershock hit central Panama. Churches and roads collapsed; no deaths were reported at first. The canal is operating normally.
Archive image · Photo: Editorpana / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped and resized)
A magnitude 7.7 earthquake shook Panama on Friday. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the epicentre was about ten kilometres southwest of the community of Pitaloza Arriba in Herrera province, at a depth of around ten kilometres. The USGS initially put the magnitude at 8.0 before revising it. Roughly two and a half hours later, a second quake of magnitude 6.6 struck near the Pacific coast. The country's geosciences institute recorded more than 80 aftershocks, AFP reported.
Civil protection officials said damage was concentrated in Veraguas, Herrera and Los Santos provinces. In Penonomé, video aired by local broadcasters showed the cathedral collapsing; according to civil protection, the governor's office building and a hotel there were also damaged. Large fissures opened on roads in Veraguas, and the town of Tonosí was cut off by land, according to AFP. President José Raúl Mulino said the country was facing “a major disaster”; as of Friday evening no deaths or injuries had been documented, he said, but that could change. Civil protection reported several injuries.
A tsunami warning for the Pacific coasts of Panama and neighbouring countries was later lifted. The Panama Canal Authority said shipping was operating normally while technical teams inspected facilities for damage. Tocumen International Airport briefly suspended operations and reopened in the afternoon. Mulino urged calm, saying what had happened should not be used to stir up alarm and disorder.