A 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck several parts of Panama on Friday evening, and as infrastructure was damaged, land communications to the coastal town of Tonosi, near the quake\u2019s epicentre, were completely cut off.<\/p>\n
According to reports, Tonosi, with a population of about 2,200, suffered the worst damage, and early images show parts of the town were cut off from access, making it difficult for rescue teams to reach the area.<\/p>\n
In Penonom\u00e9, another affected area about 150 kilometres from the capital, a three-storey hotel, a church and the provincial government building in Cocl\u00e9 collapsed. Local officials described the damage in the town as \u201cunprecedented.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the earthquake occurred at 12:56 local time, with its epicentre 12 kilometres from Tonosi and at a depth of 10 kilometres, a depth that is usually associated with severe damage.<\/p>\n
Panama\u2019s civil protection sources said two people were injured, and that a person trapped under the church rubble was pulled out alive after several hours of rescue operations. At the same time, official reports indicated there were no fatalities.<\/p>\n
In the wake of the disaster, Panama President Jos\u00e9 Ra\u00fal Mulino, accompanied by the interior minister, went to Penonom\u00e9 and said the government had begun immediate coordination to deliver water, tents and emergency equipment to the affected areas. He also said he would travel to Tonosi on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Panama\u2019s National Institute of Aqueducts and Sewers (IDAAN) reported power outages and a halt in water production in several areas, but added that much of the water treatment infrastructure had been reactivated by the end of the night. In Panama City, the shaking was strongly felt in high-rise buildings, prompting some residents to go into the streets; officials said four buildings in the capital sustained minor damage.<\/p>\n
Authorities at the Panama Canal said that despite the activation of emergency protocols, ship traffic continued without interruption. Tocumen International Airport also returned to normal operations after a brief suspension and inspections, and it was said that no damage had been recorded that would prevent the airport from functioning.<\/p>\n
An initial tsunami warning for Panama\u2019s coasts and several other regional countries was lifted in the afternoon on Friday. Panama\u2019s Institute of Geosciences said 107 aftershocks had been recorded by the end of the night, and according to the institute\u2019s head, Nestor Luque, the tremors occurred within the active Azuero-Sona fault zone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A 7.7-magnitude earthquake in Panama cut off Tonosi, damaged buildings and triggered emergency response efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}