A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck southern Panama at 12:56 p.m. local time on Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, bringing down one of the two towers of the cathedral in Penonomé, crushing parked cars under the collapsing rear wing of a three-story hotel and drawing U.S. tsunami warnings for the coasts of Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.
President José Raúl Mulino said that by Friday evening no deaths or injuries had been documented, and cautioned that the count could change.
The USGS solution: 7.7 Mww, 12.6 km deep, PAGER red
The U.S. Geological Survey’s catalogue lists the mainshock as event us6000u18k: origin time 17:56:06 UTC, 12 km west-southwest of Pitaloza Arriba in Herrera province, at a depth of about 12.6 km. The agency assigned its PAGER impact alert the highest of its colors, red, logged 676 felt reports, and computed a peak shaking intensity of roughly 9.1 on the Modified Mercalli scale in its ShakeMap, a level associated with heavy damage to ordinary buildings.
The magnitude moved before it settled. USGS first reported 8.0, revised it to 7.6 and later settled on 7.7, according to the AP report carried by OPB. The same USGS weekly feed that carries the 7.7 also carries the run of aftershocks that followed within the hour, including a magnitude 5.5 at 18:22 UTC near Bajo Corral and a magnitude 5.8 at 18:37 UTC near El Cacao.
Rosendo Domínguez, 60, who lives in Herrera province, told the AP the shaking knocked things over in his kitchen; he said he was unhurt but very scared.
Penonomé’s Catedral de San Juan Bautista and the Dos Continentes hotel
The damage that drew the most attention sits in Penonomé, the capital of Coclé province, roughly 150 kilometers west of Panama City. The Spanish news agency EFE, touring the city with rescuers, reported that one of the two towers of the Catedral de San Juan Bautista collapsed. Bishop Edgardo Cedeño told EFE that the diocese’s priests and the bishop were meeting inside when the quake hit.
CBS News, drawing on the AP, described the cathedral on the main square as partially collapsed and cracked, which is the wording that matches EFE’s account of a single fallen tower rather than a flattened building. Omar Smith of Panama’s National Civil Protection Service confirmed the partial collapse on the Telemetro Reporta channel.
The Hotel Dos Continentes on the Panamericana highway lost its rear section onto parked cars, and one side of the Coclé governorship building fell while the other cracked, EFE reported. Civil Protection said damage was concentrated in Veraguas, Herrera and Los Santos provinces and that none had been reported in the capital. Local outlets cited by CBS added that the colonial-era Church of San Atanasio in Los Santos collapsed; the church was declared a national historic heritage site in 1938. Smith reported several injuries, among them one person struck by debris in Penonomé, and Tocumen International Airport suspended operations before reopening that afternoon while the Panama Canal Authority said canal traffic continued normally.
The five coasts under the U.S. tsunami warning
Al Jazeera reported that the U.S. National Weather Service issued tsunami warnings on Friday for Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Guatemala, the five countries named by the AP as well. Chile’s naval Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service separately issued its own alert for Easter Island, which a Diario Libre account said was canceled once the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center brought the magnitude down from 8.0 to 7.7.
The wider threat area was larger than the warning list. ABC News quoted the U.S. system as saying hazardous tsunami waves were possible within the next few hours along coasts that included Costa Rica, El Salvador, Peru and Mexico as well as the five warned countries. EFE reported that the threat for Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Nicaragua was issued and lifted about three hours later, and CBS said the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center first warned of possible waves on Panama’s coast and then said the threat had passed.
The U.S. tsunami warning centers’ public page showed, when read on Oct. 10, no tsunami warning, advisory, watch or threat in effect for Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon or California. A second large shock, a magnitude 6.6 at 20:25 UTC near Río Grande, flagged tsunami in the USGS record, followed about two and a half hours after the 7.7.
Mulino, who traveled to Penonomé with Government Minister Dinoska Montalvo to coordinate aid, said on Friday evening: “Nobody was ready, and no one is ever ready for this type of disaster.” Panama had not published a casualty total when the AP and EFE accounts were filed.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
More from Morning Overview
- The NSA says three phone features should be off whenever you aren’t using them
- Hurricane Hunter radar shows four warning signs that a tropical cyclone is about to strengthen, a University of Miami study found
- Tropical Storm Rachel is dumping up to 12 inches on four Mexican states on its way to major hurricane strength
- The FTC says Lens.com doubled the price shoppers saw in Google ads
