How an Infobae correspondent experienced the 7.5 magnitude earthquake that struck Panama

The scene remains intact. The grass has grown, the towel still rests on the wire fence in the spot where the journalist was at the moment of the earthquake on Friday, October 9. (JCA) A week has passed and I am still trying to explain to myself what happened. I only remember seeing myself in the house's backyard, nearly prostrate, with a blank mind, feeling a force unknown to me until that moment, moving everything around me. In an instant, I returned to those nights when I dreamed that something was holding me captive every time I tried to sleep, abandoning me only when the sun announced it was about to rise. I don't know if it was seconds, minutes, or hours during which, dazed, I tried to come back to myself, to shed the pieces that the memory insisted on keeping. There was no one. Only the distant echo of some woman accompanied me, who amid sobs was shouting "it's shaking." Time passed and the loneliness kept me company. I spoke to it with my thoughts, while trying to call my daughter, who from the capital city confirmed to me what that woman's cry had warned of. A small crack in the house remained as a trace of the passage of the 7.5-magnitude earthquake that struck Panama. (JCA) I was in Penonomé, in the province of Coclé, about two hours by car from the epicenter of the quake. Penonomé is the geographic center of the country, where the tremor hit with great force, destroying part of its church, hotels, and homes. At the time of the call, I lied to my daughter so as not to worry her. I told her I was fine, although the foul taste of that infernal noise that danced before my eyes invaded every corner of my being. That Friday, October 9, I was free of my journalistic duties. However, I kept the radio on, out of that mania of wanting to stay informed. During the earthquake, still half-prostrate, I forced myself to go to my laptop to write, to report what was happening, but my body did not obey my confused mind, which insisted on holding on to the noise, as well as that completely unfamiliar movement. Perhaps I sensed that the equipment was damaged, that it wasn't working, that the effort would be in vain. But I was the journalist, the one who had to report, even as I discovered that I was also the confused, fearful human being, trying to endure an increasingly evident despair. The tower of the San Juan Bautista church, in Penonomé, in the center of the country, succumbed to the tremor. REUTERS/Enea Lebrun The day did not move forward; it stopped. Only the increasingly frequent movements of the earth confirmed that it was still alive, though stiffened physically and mentally. When night fell, the shadows joined the uncertainty. The objects seemed to dance again. The living room lamp moved slowly, then quickly, and then stood still, fraying my nerves, like a mockery of the misfortune. My framed works held firm on the front wall. This is how my art will remain after I die, it is the last memory I will leave behind, I thought at one point. That night and the two following ones, sleep did not appear; apparently, it had escaped through the small crack that, like a mark, remained imprinted beneath one of the windows. I spent three nights sitting in the center of the house's living room, sometimes drinking water, with my senses heightened, alert to any movement, to any of those sounds that in normal life the ear fails to catch. Vehicles are seen crushed under debris after a wing of the Dos Continentes Hotel collapsed, in Penonomé. REUTERS/Enea Lebrun Along with sleep, hunger escaped. But one had to recover; the journalist had to return. On Sunday I was due back at my shift, so I had to report, to describe the surroundings. I tried several times, but the words resisted, failed to keep the appointment, never came to meet me. For the first time in my more than 30 years of journalism, I could not write; I had no coherence. Another earthquake was occurring in my alphabet. In my desperation, I contacted Alex Hernández, my colleague at the Infobae bureau in Panama, who, without hesitation, extended his hand to me. "Don't worry, Julio, I'll take care of it," he told me. Today, Friday, October 16, 2026, one week after the 7.5-magnitude earthquake that struck Panama, at exactly 12:56 noon, the aftershocks continue in the earth and in my mind, though with less intensity.