A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off Panama’s southern coast on Friday at a depth of 12.6 kilometers, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The quake damaged buildings but did not disrupt the vital Panama Canal shipping route.

Earthquakes of this strength are uncommon in Panama. Television footage showed elderly residents crying in the streets as a series of smaller aftershocks continued to shake 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 a telephone interview from the Las Minas area of Herrera province in southern Panama. He said the earthquake had damaged several homes in the area.

The epicenter was near La Pitaloza, a rural community in a sparsely populated part of Herrera province close to the Pacific coast. A Reuters witness reported that the shaking was also felt in San Jose, the capital of neighboring Costa Rica.

Omar Smith, head of Panama’s civil protection agency, told local broadcaster Telemetro Reporta that damage and other effects had been reported in Chitre, the capital of Herrera province, as well as along the coast of Los Santos province.

Historic Building Tower and Residential Balconies Collapse

Videos published by the newspaper La Prensa showed the tower of a historic building collapsing, along with several balconies on a residential building in Penonome, a city located roughly between the earthquake’s epicenter and Panama City.

In Panama’s capital, operations on two lines of the Panama City Metro were temporarily halted as a precaution, according to the transit operator. The country’s Ministry of Education also ordered schools nationwide to close.

Following the earthquake, the US Tsunami Warning System cautioned that potentially dangerous tsunami waves could reach coastal areas of Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico within three hours. The system also warned of a possible tsunami threat to Hawaii, while Chile’s navy issued its own tsunami alert.

Panama had already scheduled a nationwide evacuation exercise for the following Monday, intended to test the country’s preparedness and emergency response procedures for earthquakes.