Panama rocked by 2 powerful earthquakes
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PANAMA CITY (AP) -- Two powerful 7.7 and 6.6 magnitude earthquakes and a series of aftershocks roiled southern Panama Friday afternoon, collapsing buildings near the epicenter and prompting evacuations across the country.
The earlier quake, felt as far away as neighboring Colombia, was centered about 6 miles southwest of the remote community of Pitaloza Arriba, in the central province of Herrera, the USGS said. It struck at a depth of 6 miles.
The USGS initially reported the first quake as magnitude 8, then revised it to 7.6 and later to 7.7.
Visibly shaken residents of Panama City, the capital, gathered outside as they waited for news of the quake’s impact on Friday.
“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.”
Multiple aftershocks continued to rattle Panama, including several measuring magnitude 5.8, 5.5 and 5.2. Seismologists at the University of Panama recorded more than 45 aftershocks, though many were too weak to be felt.
Despite the strength of the successive quakes, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said authorities had not documented anyone killed as of Friday evening, though he cautioned that could change in the coming hours or days.
“Nobody was ready, and no one is ever ready for this type of disaster,” Mulino said, after calling for calm earlier in the day.
Images of crumbling buildings and deep fissures slicing through roads added to fears across a region battered by a series of devastating earthquakes in recent months.
Two back-to-back 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes roiled Venezuela’s La Guaira state in June, killing more than 6,500 people and leaving 17,000 homeless. In August, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in Colombia killed at least 289 people.
The notably lesser toll in nearby Panama may have been due to the country’s strict building codes, especially governing construction of skyscrapers in the capital, said Carlos Valdés, head of the Seismology Department at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.