By Elida Moreno
PANAMA CITY, Oct 9 (Reuters) - A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck southern Panama on Friday, damaging homes, cutting power, halting flights and sending residents into the streets, while triggering more than a dozen aftershocks.
The US Geological Survey said the earthquake struck at a depth of 12.6 km (7.8 miles) and that some casualties were possible.
Television images showed elderly residents in tears in the streets as a series of weaker aftershocks rattled the country.
“We’re scared.
It’s just the two of us old folks here. The house has cracked, and we’re afraid it could fall on us,” said Ricardo Brown, 74, in Herrera province in southern Panama, where he noted the quake damaged a number of homes in his area of Las Minas.
The Panama Canal, about 126 miles (203 km) from the epicenter, was operating normally.
About 90 vessels including bulk carriers, tankers and container ships were waiting at both ends of the key waterway to transit or dock at berths serving storage terminals and trans-shipment services, according to monitoring data from LSEG's Workspace.
Major earthquakes are rare in Panama.
USGS estimated economic losses could amount to 1% to 10% of Panama's gross domestic product.
Power was down across six provinces, according to electricity provider Naturgy. The Tocumen International airport, a major regional hub, suspended flights.
PROLONGED VIBRATIONS
Nestor Luque, director of Panama's geosciences institute, said the quake was triggered by the Azuero Sona Fault System that has long contained a build-up of pressure.
"It's a system of active faults that occasionally, due to the accumulation of stress, release this amount of energy," he said.
"The seismic signals have traveled throughout the national territory and that is why it could be felt everywhere."
In Panama City, Luke said he counted 40 seconds of vibrations, though other areas may have felt even longer tremors.
Sabina Rios, who was on the sixth floor of an old US military-era building in Panama City, said the shaking was unusually strong and prolonged.
"The quake felt strong and lasted a long time, the longest I’ve felt in years,” Rios said.
Traffic snarled across Panama City as many offices released employees early, unsure of conditions or potential structural damage to buildings, and the Metro halted service.
Students in uniform poured onto the streets of downtown Panama as schools were let out early across the city. Classes were suspended nationwide.
DAMAGE TO BUILDINGS
The quake's epicenter was close to the rural community of La Pitaloza in a sparsely populated area of Herrera, near the Pacific coastline. Shaking was also felt as far as San Jose, the capital of neighboring Costa Rica, according to a Reuters witness.
In Penonome, a city about halfway between the epicenter and Panama City, social media videos verified by Reuters showed a damaged church and nearby buildings that collapsed.
Omar Smith, who heads Panama's civil protection agency, told news outlet Telemetro Reporta that impacts had also been reported in Chitre, the capital of Herrera, and along the coast in Los Santos province.
A tsunami threat triggered by the earthquake off Panama has passed, and no further tsunami danger remains, the US Tsunami Warning System said.
Panama was due to hold a national evacuation drill on Monday of next week to test the country's emergency response capabilities against earthquakes.
Venezuela and Colombia have also suffered major earthquakes in recent months, causing thousands of deaths in total.
(Reporting by Elida Moreno in Panama City, Additional reporting by Mrinmay Dey, Iñigo Alexander, Sarah Morland, Paolo Laudani, Cassandra Garrison and Lizbeth Diaz, Rodrigo Ramirez in Mexico City, Marianna Parraga in Houston, Alvaro Murillo in San Jose, Dave Sherwood in Panama City; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon and Sanjeev Miglani)
