Panama Earthquake Puts Nine Countries Under Tsunami Threat

The magnitude 7.7 quake struck near remote Pitaloza Arriba, shook buildings in Panama City and drew tsunami threats from Mexico to Peru.

People in Panama City fled shaking buildings Friday and gathered outside, waiting to hear what a magnitude 7.7 earthquake had done to their country.

The U.S. Geological Survey put the center of the quake about 14 kilometers (9 miles) southwest of Pitaloza Arriba, a remote community near Panama's southern tip, The Associated Press reported. The shaking reached the capital, and the danger reached much farther. Nine countries, from Mexico down to Peru, are now under potential tsunami threats, the U.S. Tsunami Warning System said.

According to AP, the nine are Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. No U.S. coast is on that list.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, one of two U.S. warning centers, posted its own threat message at tsunami.gov, and its preliminary reading was a tenth lower than the USGS figure, at magnitude 7.6. It logged the quake at 17:56 UTC, which was 10:56 a.m. in Los Angeles. The message flagged possible waves of 1 to 3 meters, or roughly 3 to 10 feet.

The other center, the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, said Panama and Ecuador faced a tsunami threat, CBS News reported in an earlier account.

Back in the capital, AP described rattled residents standing outside for word of the damage. A photo CBS News ran from Agence France-Presse showed a nurse on the phone outside the maternity ward at Santo Tomás hospital.

Both U.S. centers post their updates at tsunami.gov. That's the page to watch for anyone on a coast who wants to know whether the list of nine grows.

Source: abc7.com, retrieved October 9, 2026. Other sources: tsunami.gov, CBS News.