EARTHQUAKEM6.1

M6.1 earthquake near Río Grande, Panama

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

A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck 15 km (9 mi) west of Río Grande, Panama on Monday, October 12, 2026 at 23:20 UTC, at a depth of 11 km (7 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 255 km (158 mi) away.

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

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

MagnitudeM6.1
Depth11 km (7 mi)
Time (UTC)Oct 12 23:20
Location7.71°N 81.47°W
Nearest townRío Grande · 15 km
Energy21 kilotons TNT
Aftershocks M2.5+2
Tsunami flagNo
PAGER alertYELLOW
Felt reports72
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Why here?

This earthquake struck about 69 km (43 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.

What kind of fault?

USGS’s analysis of the seismic waves shows it was a strike-slip earthquake: the two sides of the fault slid past each other sideways, like California’s San Andreas Fault.

Shaking and impact

The strongest shaking USGS estimates was intensity 7 on the Modified Mercalli scale: very strong. About 186,931 people were exposed to moderate shaking or stronger (intensity 5 and up), including about 2,620 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 6.1 released roughly the energy of 21 kilotons of TNT, about as much as the Hiroshima atomic bomb. That is about 1,400 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 130,000 times more than this one.

Aftershocks

In the first 13 days after it, USGS recorded 2 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.

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 112 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 12, 2026 or earthquakes by day.

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