PANAMA (WGNS) – A powerful 7.7‑magnitude earthquake rocked southern Panama this weekend, sending shockwaves through several provinces and triggering more than 200 aftershocks. Homes were damaged, roads cracked, and a few historic buildings lost their façades. Emergency crews rushed into rural communities, but in a stroke of good fortune, no deaths have been reported and only a few dozen injuries.
For Middle Tennesseans, the number 7.7 carries a familiar chill. That’s roughly the same magnitude as the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811–1812, the series of violent quakes that reshaped the landscape of West Tennessee and created Reelfoot Lake. Those quakes were so intense they reportedly made the Mississippi River appear to flow backward.
A tale of two quakes …