M7.7 Panama

Similar Stochastic Events | Summary
Posting Date: October 12, 2026, 10:00:00 AM

On Friday, October 9, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Panama at 12:56 pm local time, with an epicenter southwest of Pitaloza Arriba, a small village in Herrera Province. The USGS first measured it at 8.0 before revising it down. About 4.6 million people felt moderate to severe shaking, and the quake sent panicked residents into the streets in Panama City. The main shock was followed by a strong aftershock sequence, including a magnitude 6.6 aftershock that reached Severe (VIII) shaking intensity. By Sunday, more than 200 aftershocks had been recorded, though a University of Panama seismologist said they were weakening and spacing out. A tsunami warning was issued for much of the Pacific coast of Central and South America, but a seismologist noted the quake was on land and shallow, so it did not displace the seafloor in a way that generates a tsunami.

ALERT™ subscribers can download stochastic event (SSE) IDs for this earthquake’s impacts from the Downloads tab of this posting on the ALERT website. Compatible with Touchstone® and Touchstone Re™, the SSEs were selected based on the event’s magnitude, depth, epicenter location, faulting characteristics, observed shaking distribution, and aftershock activity. They should only be used with exposures in Panama.

The damage is widespread across the central provinces. Authorities have reported no deaths or missing people, but at least 27 people were injured, 17 of them in Coclé. By Saturday, civil protection officials counted at least 142 homes, 188 schools, 20 healthcare facilities and nine bridges damaged across nine provinces. By Sunday, the home count had risen to nearly 900 damaged homes, and the government declared a national state of emergency. In Penonomé (Coclé), about 70 miles from the epicenter, CNN-verified footage shows a church with a partially collapsed steeple and another building with a crumbled facade. The cathedral and the governor’s office building there also collapsed. In Chitré, the capital of Herrera, dozens of homes were damaged and its 66,000 residents were still without electricity on Saturday, with many sleeping outdoors for fear of another quake.

The southern coast of the Azuero Peninsula was also hit hard. A hotel and several homes collapsed in Tonosí. The El Sitio Hotel at Playa Venao partially collapsed. In Los Santos province, about 300 people were evacuated from a coastal community to higher ground after sea levels rose, and five communities remained isolated by damaged bridges, roads and landslides. Other damage includes 26 government buildings, 13 churches, seven hotels and several water treatment plants. In Panama City, over 200 km from the epicenter, several buildings in the old banking district were evacuated as a precaution. Officials caution that the full toll is still uncertain, especially in cut-off communities, and these figures are preliminary and likely to change.

No additional ALERT postings are planned for this event, though the Verisk team is continuing to monitor the aftermath of this event.  Please contact your Verisk representative with any questions.

Similar Stochastic Events | Downloads
Posting Date: October 12, 2026, 10:00:00 AM

The information provided herein is strictly confidential and is solely for the use of Verisk clients; disclosure to others is prohibited.

Similar Stochastic Event IDs

Note: These lists give event IDs taken from our stochastic catalog that have similar characteristics as the current event.

Product	File Type	Description	Download
TOUCHSTONE / Re	Excel (xls)	Selected set of stochastic events, with Readme in Excel format
TOUCHSTONE / Re	CSV (csv)	Selected set of stochastic events, formatted for import into Touchstone/Re