“Mom, Dad, I’m here”: a child’s miraculous survival after the earthquake

The land trembled with unusual violence in Panama and left behind a wake of destruction, but also stories marked by miracle and neighbouring solidarity. An earthquake of magnitude 7.5 shook the Central American country and reduced to rubble a house in the Soná district, where a young child managed to survive miraculously after being trapped under a bed with other family members.

The immediate history of the phenomenon indicates that the epicenter was located at little depth in the Tonosí area, causing severe structural damage, widespread cuts in the supply of water and electricity, and leaving entire communities completely unconnected by land. In the midst of darkness and post-tremor despair, the ten members of the affected family were left without a roof to spend the night.

The critical moment was when the mother, aware that the children were inside, alerted the father to the absence of the child. After multiple unanswered calls in the middle of the remains of the collapsed structure, a phrase broke the silence from the bottom of the ruins: “Mom, Dad, I’m here.” The father and several neighbors who joined the rescue tasks quickly managed to make way between the rubble to remove the minor and his relatives, in a scene that the protagonists themselves described as a true miracle.

Voices of the affected residents in the most hit localities described scenes of deep distress, with constant replicas every few minutes that forced the population to remain intact in the courtyards, away from walls and electric tends. National authorities and civil protection teams deployed emergency operations to assess the conditions of the affected buildings, assist the injured and relieve the total damage recorded in different parts of the country’s interior.

The future projection of this emergency highlights the enormous humanitarian and reconstruction challenge facing the Panamanian government to assist the families affected. While the brigades continue with the reliefs in the most isolated areas, the testimony of survival in Soná is erected as the symbol of resilience of a community hit by the force of nature.