interior

Moderate quake shakes Chiriquí

A 5.5 magnitude earthquake shook the mountain district of Barú on Tuesday.

The earthquake’s epicenter lies within the Panama Fracture Zone, an area of high seismic activity.

LA PRENSA

moving earth: Landslides have blocked roads around the Los Plancitos mountain community, forcing residents to travel by horse.1043500

An earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter Scale shook parts of the province of Chiriquí at 12:42 p.m. on Tuesday, notably in the mountain community of Los Plancitos, in the Barú district. Over a hundred aftershocks have followed, causing landslides and structural damage, and worrying people who live in the area.

The Instituto de Geociencias de la Universidad de Panamá explained that the quake originated in the Panama Fracture Zone, in the westernmost corner of the province.

Residents’s fears increased when cracks in the earth’s surface were discovered nearby, prompting them to call for an official investigation of the quake and to draft an earthquake emergency plan.

Eulogio Batista, a Los Plancitos resident, said that 25 landslides affecting the nearby highway were reported last May 26. Since then, people living in the community have had to get around on horseback.

“We’ve had to transport sick people in hammocks because no vehicle can get up here,” he said.

Batista pointed out that one of the buildings affected by the quake was a school recently inaugurated by First Lady Vivian Fernández de Torrijos. It’s ceiling was damaged.

According to Eduardo Camacho, a geologist at the Instituto de Geociencias, three tectonic plates converge in the region where the earthquake was recorded: the Caribbean, Coco and Nazca Plates. They form what is called the Panama Fracture Zone.

Camacho explained that the Burica and Los Plancitos communities are in high seismic risk areas, requiring increased seismic monitoring and better enforcement of earthquake-resistant building standards.