LA VILLA DE LOS SANTOS, Panama — The government of Panama declared a state of emergency Saturday as the aftershocks of two powerful earthquakes that roiled the country shook communities for hours. Officials did not attribute any deaths to the quakes but reported damages in all 10 of Panama’s provinces and two Indigenous territories. The 7.7- and 6.6-magnitude earthquakes toppled buildings near the epicentre and prompted evacuations across the Central American country. Seismologists at the University of Panama recorded dozens of aftershocks, including ones measuring magnitude 5.8, 5.5 and 5.2. The earlier quake, also felt in neighboring Colombia, was centered about 10 kilometres (six miles) southwest of the remote community of Pitaloza Arriba, in the central province of Herrera, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It struck at a depth of 10 kilometres (six miles). Presidential Minister Juan Carlos Orillac announced the emergency during a news conference in the capital, Panama City. He said homes, schools, healthcare facilities, roads and hotels were among the damaged facilities. Malitzie Rivera, deputy director of the National Civil Protection System, told reporters the state had reports of 27 people with injuries, ranging from minor to moderate. Hundreds of homes were damaged Most of the damage was concentrated in the central provinces of Veraguas, Herrera, Cocle and Los Santos. The Civil Protection agency tallied roughly 420 homes and about the same number of public schools damaged. It also reported that seven hotels, at least 13 churches and nine bridges were affected by the earthquakes. In La Villa de Los Santos, a colonial-era community about 40 miles (64 kilometres) northeast of the epicenter, homes and a historical Catholic church collapsed. People who spent the night on the streets were waiting for the government’s guidance on what to do next. “We’ve been here since 1 p.m. yesterday; we haven’t moved,” Tony Jiménez, whose home partially collapsed, said while sitting with relatives under a tent. “It was a terrible thing. I can tell you with absolute certainty that in my 90 years, I had never experienced anything like it. It was intense — truly intense.” The collapsed Church of San Atanasio was declared a National Historic Heritage Site in 1938. 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 lower 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. Rising sea levels prompt evacuations Officials did not report any missing people on Saturday but said some communities remained cut off due to landslides and road damage. On Isla Caña, off the Pacific coast of Los Santos, approximately 300 people were evacuated because of rising sea levels and rough surf. Meanwhile, in the city of Penonomé, around 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the capital, a shelter was housing 13 people, including five children. The earthquakes caused a partial collapse and cracks at the cathedral in the district’s main square, as well as damage to the governor’s office building and the Dos Continentes hotel. In Panama City, one of the water treatment plants supplying the area operated at 20 per cent capacity on Saturday, and tent facilities with cots were set up at six hospitals. Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, one of the region’s busiest airports with more than 20 million passengers in 2025, temporarily suspended operations after the first quake but said Friday afternoon that it was reopening. But hundreds of travelers on major Panama-based airlines like Copa Airlines were left stranded in airports around the region. Their connections through Tocumen — one of the biggest travel hubs in the region — were canceled or delayed. In Mexico City’s airport, airline employees scrambled as families with babies were sleeping on the floor Saturday while one woman from Venezuela shouted in panic that the flight through Panama was one of the only ways she could return home to Caracas. The Panama Canal Authority said operations were continuing normally along the global trade route. It said its priority was the safety of employees, vessels and crews and that specialized technical teams were inspecting facilities for possible damage. The last major earthquake to cause widespread damage in Panama struck in 1991. A magnitude 7.4 quake, centered in nearby Costa Rica, killed 23 people, injured 559 and left thousands of people homeless in the border Bocas del Toro region. Earthquakes are common, especially along Panama’s border with Costa Rica and its Pacific coast, because of the interaction of several tectonic plates, including the Cocos, Nazca and Caribbean plates. Panama lies along the “Ring of Fire,” a 40,000-kilometre (25,000-mile) arc of volcanoes and fault lines around the Pacific Basin, where most of the world’s earthquakes occur. Countries offer help Messages of support and offers of assistance flooded in from across the region shortly after the earthquakes. Mulino on Friday thanked fellow Latin American leaders for their support, saying he had spoken with the presidents of Chile, Uruguay and Guatemala, among others. The U.S. Department of State on Saturday said it mobilized a disaster response team to help local authorities with search and rescue expertise as well as aerial and on-the-ground assessments. The U.S. government also pledged US$5 million for humanitarian assistance. U.S. Southern Command also said two helicopters supported by the State Department’s drug-control bureau had delivered 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms) of food to Panamanian communities affected by the earthquakes. Aris Mariota, Juan Zamorano, Megan Janetsky And Alma Solís, The Associated Press Janetsky reported from Mexico City, and Zamorano and Solís reported from Panama City. Associated Press writers Regina Garcia Cano and María Verza in Mexico City; Clara Preve in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Gabriela Molina in Quito, Ecuador; Eléonore Hughes in Rio de Janeiro; and Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, contributed to this report.
