Magnitude 7.7 earthquake shakes Panama, prompts evacuations in capital

Open this photo in gallery:People stand outside the maternity ward of the Santo Tomas hospital in Panama City on Friday, following a severe magnitude 7.6 earthquake that hit the country.MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP/Getty ImagesA powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Panama on Friday morning, shaking buildings in the capital, prompting evacuations and sending tremors as far as neighbouring Colombia.The quake was centred about 10 kilometres southwest of the remote community of Pitaloza Arriba, in the central province of Herrera, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It struck at a depth of 10 kilometres. USGS initially reported the quake as magnitude 8, then revised it to 7.6 and later to 7.7.Visibly shaken residents of Panama City gathered outside as they waited for news of the quake’s impact on Friday. Aftershocks followed, with the USGS recording two measuring 5.8 and 5.5.“We felt it very strongly. It knocked things over in the kitchen, but we’re okay, though we’re very scared,” Rosendo Domínguez, 60, who is from Herrera province, where the earthquake struck, told the Associated Press by phone. “Everyone is outside, scared.”The National Weather Service issued a tsunami warning Friday for the coasts of Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino called for calm on Friday, writing on X: “What happened should not be used to cause alarm or disorder.”Omar Smith of the National Civil Protection Service said on the Telemetro Reporta news channel that damage was concentrated in the central provinces of Veraguas, Herrera and Los Santos. He said there were no reports of damage in the capital, which is known for its hundreds of skyscrapers.Video aired by local news outlets showed a Catholic cathedral collapsing and part of a hotel’s façade falling onto a car in the city of Penonomé, in the central province of Coclé. No casualties were immediately reported.Panama lies along the “Ring of Fire,” a 40,000-kilometre arc of volcanoes and fault lines around the Pacific Basin, where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.Panama’s Civil Protection said it was investigating possible damage in regions near the epicentre.