Imagine riding a bike when the road beneath you suddenly begins to shake. A viral video capturing the incident shows what an earthquake can feel like for someone caught outdoors, going about their routine, when the ground begins to tremble. The man then brings his bike to a stop and gets off the two-wheeler.
That is the frightening moment a biker in Panama experienced on Friday, when a powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck the country.
The motorcycle rider is heard saying “whoa, whoa” as car in front of him starts shaking.
Schools have been suspended across the country on Monday, while the Panama Canal said shipping operations remained unaffected. Users have reacted with amusement. Hundreds of homes were damaged, prompting the government to declare a national state of emergency over the weekend.
Posted on Saturday, the video has massed close to 2 million views. The motorcycle in the video is a Royal Enfield Shotgun 650 and users have acknowledged the fact. Tsunami alert was triggered after the earthquake rocked Panama on October 9, unleashing panic in the high-rise capital city and causing buildings to collapse in the centre of the country. The quake, registered at a shallow depth of 12 kilometres, was felt across the country of around 4.5 million people, according to the National Civil Protection System, and lasted for around a minute. More than 200 aftershocks followed the 7-7-magnitude quake in which 27 people were injured. This was at least the fourth quake this year in Latin America surpassing 7.0 in magnitude, after devastating earthquakes in Venezuela’s Guaira in June and a powerful earthquake in western Colombia in August.
“I’d be too paranoid to stop under that streetlight with how much it was shaking,” one user said on X. “Looks like a video game,” commented another. “Seeing the Royal Enfield and Creta made me think it was India, but the road infrastructure convinced me otherwise,” another X user commented.
