A 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck near the southern coast of Panama on Friday at a 12.6 kilometer depth, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), damaging some buildings but without affecting the critical Panama Canal trade waterway.
Following initial fears of a tsunami, the US Tsunami Warning System updated later on Friday that no tsunami warning, advisory, watch, or threat has been issued.
In Panama, where earthquakes of this magnitude are rare, television images showed elderly residents reduced to tears in the streets as a series of weaker aftershocks rattled the country.
“We’re scared. It’s just the two of us old folks here. The house has cracked, and we’re afraid it could fall on us,” said Ricardo Brown, 74, speaking by phone from the Las Minas area in Herrera province in southern Panama, where he noted the quake damaged a number of homes.
The quake’s epicenter was close to the rural community of La Pitaloza in a sparsely populated area of Herrera, near the Pacific coastline. Shaking was also felt as far as San Jose, the capital of neighboring Costa Rica, according to a Reuters witness.
Omar Smith, who heads Panama’s civil protection agency, told local outlet Telemetro Reporta that Chitre, the capital of Herrera, and the coast of Los Santos province had reported impacts.
Historic building, several balconies collapse from earthquake damage
Videos shared by newspaper La Prensa showed the tower of a historic building had collapsed along with several balconies of a residential building in Penonome, a city about halfway between the epicenter and Panama City.
In the capital, the service on two lines of the Panama City Metro was temporarily suspended for safety reasons, the operator said. Nationwide, Panama’s ministry of education ordered the closure of schools.
The impact prompted the US Tsunami Warning System to initially warn that hazardous tsunami waves were possible along parts of the coasts of Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico within the next three hours. The system also said there was a tsunami threat to Hawaii, while Chile’s navy also issued a tsunami alert.
Shipping through the Panama Canal remains uninterrupted
The Panama Canal Authority said the canal was operating normally and that staff were inspecting for earthquake-related damage, later adding that ships are passing through the canal without interruption.
Panama is set to hold a national evacuation drill next Monday to test the country’s earthquake response.
Vessel passage was not interrupted on Friday at the Panama Canal following a strong earthquake that caused infrastructure damage in the Central American country, the waterway’s authority said.
Operations at the canal were normal while technical teams inspected facilities, the authority said in a release, adding that an emergency protocol had been activated.
The quake prompted tsunami warnings for parts of the coasts of Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico.
About 90 vessels, including bulk carriers, tankers, and container ships, were on Friday at both ends of the canal waiting to pass or to dock at any of the berths serving storage terminals and trans-shipment services, according to monitoring data from LSEG’s Workspace.
