EARTHQUAKEM5.5

M5.5 earthquake near Bajo Corral, Panama

Map: the earthquake near Bajo Corral, Panama, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 5.5 earthquake struck 3 km (2 mi) southwest of Bajo Corral, Panama on Friday, October 9, 2026 at 18:22 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 175 km (109 mi) away.

USGS’s PAGER impact estimate is GREEN: little or no damage expected.

3 people reported feeling it to USGS “Did You Feel It?”.

MagnitudeM5.5
Depth10 km (6 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 9 18:22
Location7.59°N 80.29°W
Nearest townBajo Corral · 3 km
Energy3 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+63
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertGREEN
Felt reports3
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 39 km (24 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.

Shaking and impact

The strongest shaking USGS estimates was intensity 7 on the Modified Mercalli scale: very strong. About 78,809 people were exposed to moderate shaking or stronger (intensity 5 and up), including about 716 to very strong shaking or worse (7 and up). USGS’s PAGER system estimates it most likely caused no deaths (90 percent probability). Early estimates are revised as reports come in.

How strong was it?

Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step releases about 32 times more energy. This magnitude 5.5 released roughly the energy of 3 kilotons of TNT. That is about 178 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 1,000,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 17 days after it, USGS recorded 63 smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). The largest was a magnitude 5.4 on October 9 at 23:12 UTC.

A stronger magnitude 6.0 followed on October 10 at 04:14 UTC, about 35 km (22 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 83 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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