7.7 Earthquake Just Slammed Panama — and a Tsunami Alert Went Out Across 9 Countries

In 60 seconds: A magnitude-7.7 earthquake struck near Panama's Pacific coast on Friday afternoon, shaking buildings in the capital and triggering a tsunami alert across nine countries. No casualties have been reported so far — but this is a developing story, and the picture is still filling in.

Panama just got hit by the biggest earthquake the country has seen in a very long time — and for a few tense hours, much of the Pacific coast of the Americas was on tsunami watch.

Honestly, the first numbers were scary. The USGS initially called it a magnitude 8.0, then revised it down to 7.6, and finally settled on 7.7 after review. In a country where quakes this powerful are genuinely rare, that kind of shaking is the stuff people talk about for decades.

What happened

At 1:56 p.m. Eastern time on Friday — about 11:26 p.m. Friday night in India — the ground started moving under southern Panama. The epicenter was about 12 kilometers west-southwest of Pitaloza Arriba, a rural community in Herrera province near the Pacific coastline, at a shallow depth of around 10 to 12 kilometers. Shallow is the key word here: the shallower the quake, the harder it hits the surface.

It lasted roughly a minute — a very long minute. Buildings swayed in Panama City, some 200 kilometers from the epicenter, and people poured out of the capital's skyscrapers into the streets. The shaking was felt as far away as San José, Costa Rica, and tremors reached into neighboring Colombia.

Then came the tsunami scare. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued an alert covering Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico, forecasting waves of 1 to 3 meters above tide level along some Panamanian coasts. For a few hours, coastal communities across the region were told to stay alert and follow official guidance.

Latest verified facts

Here's where things stand as of the latest verified reports:

Damage, but no deaths so far. Panama's civil protection agency says damage is concentrated in the central provinces of Veraguas, Herrera and Los Santos. Local television showed a Catholic cathedral collapsing in Penonomé, in Coclé province, and part of a hotel facade falling onto a car. In the capital, the Hospital del Niño was evacuated as a precaution — but officials reported no damage in Panama City itself.

The tsunami threat was stood down. Later on Friday, the U.S. Tsunami Warning System updated its guidance: no tsunami warning, advisory, watch or threat is currently in effect. The initial alert did its job — it got coastal communities moving — and then the data said the danger had passed.

Aftershocks keep coming. The USGS recorded aftershocks of magnitude 5.8 and 5.5, and weaker tremors have continued rattling the country. Anyone in the region should expect more of them in the coming days — that's just how aftershock sequences work.

The human side. "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," Ricardo Brown, 74, told Reuters by phone from the Las Minas area in Herrera province. Television images showed elderly residents reduced to tears in the streets. "We felt it very strongly. It knocked things over in the kitchen, but we're okay, though we're very scared," said Rosendo Domínguez, 60. "Everyone is outside, scared."

Official response. President José Raúl Mulino said the entire government is mobilizing and that he will personally take part in coordinating the response in the worst-hit areas. "What happened should not be used to cause alarm or disorder," he wrote on X, calling for calm. A government press conference is expected.

Why it matters

Panama sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire, the 40,000-kilometer arc of fault lines where most of the world's earthquakes happen. But a 7.7 this close to populated areas is unusual for Panama specifically — and the country's building stock, particularly outside the capital's modern high-rises, isn't engineered for shaking of this intensity.

The USGS's automated PAGER system issued a red alert — its highest level — based on the shaking intensity and the population exposed. That doesn't automatically mean mass casualties, but it means the models flagged this one as potentially serious. The next 24 to 48 hours of damage assessment will tell the real story.

There's also the infrastructure question. The Panama Canal — one of the most important trade waterways on the planet — kept operating through the quake, which is genuinely good news. But power disruptions across six provinces and a closed international airport show how much a single minute of shaking can knock sideways.

Impact on the USA and the world

For American readers, the direct link is real. The U.S. Embassy in Panama said it is assessing potential damage, accounting for the welfare and whereabouts of U.S. personnel and visitors, and asked American citizens in the country to enroll in the State Department's STEP program and follow embassy social media for updates.

The U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center also issued guidance covering California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska — subsequent updates said there was no tsunami threat to the U.S. West Coast, Alaska, Hawaii or distant Pacific islands, though minor sea-level changes were possible closer to the source.

Globally, the canal's continued operation is the headline that matters most. Any extended disruption there would ripple through global shipping within days. So far, that bullet has been dodged.

What happens next

The immediate question is the damage toll. With daylight returning to Panama, assessment teams are fanning out across Herrera, Los Santos, Veraguas and Coclé — the provinces that took the hit. If the "no casualties" picture holds through the weekend, this becomes a story about rebuilding rather than rescue.

Watch the aftershocks, too. A 7.7 mainshock typically produces a long tail of aftershocks, some of them strong enough to damage already-weakened buildings. Authorities will be watching the cathedral-collapse zone in Penonomé and the cracked homes in Herrera especially closely.

And keep an eye on the canal. It held up this time — but Panama's engineers will be inspecting locks and dams with unusual care over the next few days. A waterway this critical doesn't get to have a bad day.

This is a developing story — updates to follow as damage assessments come in.