EARTHQUAKEM4.9

M4.9 earthquake near Río Grande, Panama

Map: the earthquake near Río Grande, Panama, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck 14 km (9 mi) northwest of Río Grande, Panama on Friday, October 9, 2026 at 20:54 UTC, at a depth of 10 km (6 mi), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Shallow quakes like this one shake the surface hardest. The nearest city of a million or more people is Panama City, Panama, about 245 km (152 mi) away.

MagnitudeM4.9
Depth10 km (6 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 9 20:54
Location7.81°N 81.43°W
Nearest townRío Grande · 14 km
Energy338 tons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+40
Tsunami flagNo
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 78 km (49 mi) from the boundary between the Cocos and Nazca plates. Most earthquakes happen along plate boundaries like this one, where the pieces of Earth’s outer shell collide, pull apart or grind past each other. Stress builds up over years until the rock suddenly slips.

The red lines on the map are plate boundaries.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 4.9 released roughly the energy of 338 tons of TNT. That is about 22 times the energy of a magnitude 4.0, a quake people nearby feel but that rarely causes damage. The strongest earthquake ever recorded, magnitude 9.5 in Chile in 1960, released about 7,900,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 16 days after it, USGS recorded 40 smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). The largest was a magnitude 4.8 on October 10 at 10:35 UTC.

A stronger magnitude 6.1 followed on October 12 at 23:20 UTC, about 12 km (7 mi) away, so this one is now considered a foreshock.

Outside the United States, USGS mainly lists quakes of about magnitude 4 and up, so smaller aftershocks there are undercounted.

Earthquake history here

Before this earthquake, USGS had recorded 109 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or larger within 300 km (186 mi) since 1900. The strongest:

Official details, updates and the shaking map: USGS event page.

See every earthquake on October 9, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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