EARTHQUAKEM5.8

M5.8 earthquake near El Cacao, Panama

Map: the earthquake near El Cacao, Panama, with plate boundaries

A magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck 1 km (1 mi) south of El Cacao, Panama on Friday, October 9, 2026 at 18:37 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 195 km (121 mi) away.

USGS’s PAGER impact estimate is YELLOW: some damage possible.

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

MagnitudeM5.8
Depth10 km (6 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 9 18:37
Location7.44°N 80.40°W
Nearest townEl Cacao · 1 km
Energy8 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+3
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertYELLOW
Felt reports12
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Why here?

This earthquake struck right along 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 93,043 people were exposed to moderate shaking or stronger (intensity 5 and up), including about 4,987 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 5.8 released roughly the energy of 8 kilotons of TNT. That is about 501 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 350,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 16 days after it, USGS recorded 3 smaller earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or more within 100 km (62 mi). The largest was a magnitude 4.3 on October 20 at 22:51 UTC.

A stronger magnitude 6.0 followed on October 10 at 04:14 UTC, about 23 km (14 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 91 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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