Powerful earthquakes strike Panama, triggering widespread aftershocks

Photo — Franklin Peña Gutierrez / Pexels

The shallow earthquake struck Friday at 12:56 p.m. local time at a depth of about four kilometers, according to Panama’s Institute of Geosciences. A subsequent magnitude 6.6 aftershock was reported by the U.S. Geological Survey, while officials assessed damage and continued emergency operations. The sequence is the most immediate large-scale natural disaster among the major international developments reported, although casualty and damage figures remained incomplete.

Sources: Xinhua, Al Jazeera, Asharq Al-Awsat