Magnitude-7.7 earthquake jolts Panama, collapses buildings, triggers regional tsunami alert

A magnitude-7.7 earthquake tore through central Panama on Friday afternoon, collapsing a hotel and part of a fire station, cracking open a centuries-old cathedral, and damaging dozens of hospitals and schools, before triggering a tsunami alert across 11 countries and prompting President Jose Raul Mulino to declare a "major disaster" and rush his government to the hardest-hit towns.

The quake struck at 12:56 p.m. local time (17:56 GMT), with an epicenter roughly 39 kilometers northwest of the town of Tonosi in Los Santos province, according to Panama's Institute of Geosciences. The U.S. Geological Survey's reviewed estimate put the magnitude at 7.7, moment magnitude, slightly higher than the 7.5 Panamanian seismologists initially reported; both agencies agreed the rupture was shallow, around 10 to 12 kilometers deep, which amplified the shaking at the surface.

Video verified by the BBC showed part of a building collapsing in real time in Penonome, the capital of Cocle province, where the colonial-era Catedral San Juan Bautista lost part of a spire and suffered cracking, the governor's office was badly damaged, and the Hotel Dos Continentes partly collapsed. Local media reported that the Church of San Atanasio, a national heritage site dating to the Spanish colonial period in the town of La Villa de Los Santos, also came down. No one was reported trapped in either structure.

The toll so far

As of Friday evening, no deaths had been confirmed. Panama's Health Ministry (Minsa) reported non-structural damage at 17 health facilities — six hospitals, eight health centers and three clinics — and said it had no reports of fatalities or critical injuries as of its 6:50 p.m. update, according to Panamanian newspaper La Prensa's survey of institutional damage reports. Fifteen students at a school in Cocle suffered minor injuries, and one person was pulled from a collapsed section of a municipal market in Aguadulce.

• Magnitude: 7.7 (USGS), with an epicenter 39 km northwest of Tonosi at roughly 10-12 km depth
• An estimated 4.6 million people felt moderate-to-severe shaking, per USGS data cited by the BBC
• More than 100 aftershocks recorded within hours, including a magnitude-6.6 jolt roughly two-and-a-half hours after the mainshock and a magnitude-6.0 aftershock overnight
• 17 health facilities, at least 7 schools and multiple fire stations reported damage nationwide
• Tsunami alerts were issued for 11 countries, then lifted within hours with no waves reported

The U.S. Geological Survey's automated loss-estimate system, known as PAGER, assigned the quake its highest "red" alert for economic losses — meaning the agency's models flag potentially extensive damage costs — and an "orange" alert for fatalities, with the model's most likely scenario putting the human toll in the dozens to low hundreds if it materializes at all. Those are statistical projections, not confirmed figures, and Panamanian officials stressed hours after the quake that no deaths had been reported.

A country built for tremors, not a combination like this

Panama sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" and records earthquakes regularly, but a shallow magnitude-7-plus rupture paired with a tsunami warning is unusual for the country. Mulino, visiting Penonome hours after the quake, acknowledged as much. "The country isn't prepared, and no one ever really is; we don't have that habit either," he said, according to La Prensa's report from the scene. "In Panama there are tremors and so on, but we don't have this combination of earthquakes plus tsunami."

The timing added an unsettling coincidence: the quake struck just three days before Panama was scheduled to hold a long-planned national evacuation drill for a major earthquake scenario, the BBC noted. It also follows a string of larger regional quakes this year in Colombia and Venezuela, part of a pattern of elevated seismic activity across the northern Andes and Central America that has strained disaster-response budgets across the region.

Hospitals, schools and a canal evacuated

The damage radiated outward from the epicenter across six provinces. In Los Santos, the Hospital Regional Anita Moreno had cracked walls and stairwells and evacuated patients, while the rural hospital in Tonosi lost part of its structure and treated patients outdoors. In Chiriqui province, 209 people were evacuated from the Hospital del Oriente Chiricano after structural damage to its emergency and equipment wings. In Panama City, the Hospital Santo Tomas reported structural damage to its fifth-floor trauma ward and maternity sections in both its old and new buildings, and the Hospital del Nino carried out a precautionary evacuation.

Fire stations were hit hard, too: the central station in Sona, Veraguas province, partially collapsed, trapping emergency vehicles and a boat inside, while stations in David, La Chorrera, Herrera and Los Santos reported cracked walls and falling ceiling tiles. Panama City's Metro suspended lines 1 and 2 for inspection after evacuating passengers, and Tocumen International Airport briefly halted flights before reopening the same afternoon. The Panama Canal Authority said in a statement that four office buildings in the Pacific sector suffered minor damage but that "the Panama Canal's operations continue to run normally" and ship transits were unaffected.

"I am closely monitoring reports of the earthquake in southern Panama. The United States stands with the people of Panama. At the request of the Panamanian government, the State Department is rapidly mobilizing resources and personnel to assist," U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a social media post.

Rosendo Dominguez, 60, a resident of Herrera province, told the Associated Press by phone that the shaking had cracked his home. "We felt it very strongly. It knocked things over in the kitchen, but we're okay, though we're very scared," he said, adding that neighbors had gathered outside, afraid to go back indoors.

Aid pledged as aftershocks continue

Beyond Washington's offer of assistance, the Caracas-headquartered development bank CAF — the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean — announced a $250,000 donation and made a $50 million emergency credit line available to Panama's government. "Today we stand with the people of Panama, who have been affected by the earthquake," CAF's executive president, Sergio Diaz-Granados Guida, said in a statement coordinated with Panama's finance ministry. Colombia's president also called Mulino to offer assistance, Panamanian officials said, as did other regional leaders.

The immediate danger of a Pacific-wide tsunami passed within hours: the U.S.-run tsunami warning system that covers Central and South America lifted its alert for Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico — and a parallel watch for Hawaii — after finding no hazardous waves generated by the rupture, according to Deutsche Welle's reporting. But the ground has not finished moving: the USGS's one-week aftershock forecast gives roughly a two-in-three chance of at least one more magnitude-6 aftershock in the days ahead, and about a one-in-eight chance of another magnitude-7 event, a risk Panama's civil protection agency, Sinaproc, is using to keep shelters and inspection teams in place in the hardest-hit provinces.

Mulino said his government was first compiling a full inventory of what towns like Penonome and Tonosi actually need before dispatching aid, urging Panamanians not to spread unverified reports on social media. Economic officials have begun seeking international financing as the government tallies a damage bill it says it cannot yet estimate, even as crews continue inspecting hospitals, schools, water-treatment plants and government buildings across the earthquake zone.