M8.0 Earthquake near Pitaloza Arriba, Panama — 09 October 2026

Great earthquakes are among the largest events ever recorded and can devastate areas hundreds of kilometres across. Offshore events of this size are the primary cause of destructive ocean-wide tsunamis.

A magnitude 8.0 earthquake radiates roughly 15.1 million tons of TNT equivalent in seismic energy.

The USGS assigns this earthquake a significance score of 985, which meets the USGS threshold of more than 600 for its significant-earthquake list. The ranking combines magnitude with available Did You Feel It responses and PAGER alert level; it is not a direct measurement of damage.

That is about 12:33 local solar time at the epicentre, around midday.

This event was deeper than 86% of the 43 earthquakes recorded in Panama in our catalogue and stronger than 98% of them.

The epicentre was located at 7.5400, -80.7500 — 14 km southwest of Pitaloza Arriba. The closest other recorded event was a magnitude 7.6 earthquake 7 km north of here on 09 October 2026.

The nearest other settlements in our records are El Cortezo (11 km southeast), Arenas (125 km southwest), Boca Chica (171 km west) and Tobobe (191 km north-northwest).

At 33 km this was a shallow earthquake. Shallow events release their energy close to the surface, so for a given magnitude they produce noticeably stronger shaking — and more damage — than deeper ones. Roughly three quarters of all earthquakes worldwide occur at shallow depths.

This catalogue does not ingest eyewitness responses, so it cannot confirm where this earthquake was felt. Based on magnitude alone, an event this size can produce strong, widely felt shaking. Its shallow focus makes stronger surface shaking more likely than for a deeper event of the same magnitude.

The USGS record does not carry a link to NOAA tsunami information. That field is not an all-clear and does not state whether a tsunami occurred. In this case, a damaging tsunami would be less likely because it occurred inland rather than beneath the sea floor. For an active coastal alert, use tsunami.gov or your local warning authority.

No further earthquakes have been recorded within about 150 km of the epicentre since this event was recorded.

23 earthquakes of magnitude 4 or above have been logged within roughly 200 km of this epicentre in our catalogue. The strongest was a magnitude 7.6 event near Pitaloza Arriba on 09 October 2026. This M8.0 event released about 4.0 times more energy than that event.

3 earthquakes have been recorded within 100 km of this epicentre in the past year, 1 of them in the past 30 days.

This earthquake is part of the October 2026 worldwide record, and of earthquakes in Panama during October 2026. Browse the full monthly archive to compare periods.