Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

An el­der­ly Tri­ni cou­ple va­ca­tion­ing in Pana­ma were al­most tram­pled on yes­ter­day as a mas­sive 7.7 earth­quake caused pan­ic in the city.

The quake has dam­aged sev­er­al ma­jor build­ings, dis­rupt­ed the pow­er sup­ply, caused flight can­cel­la­tions and trig­gered a tsuna­mi warn­ing.

Fazal and his wife Lin­da Ho­sein ar­rived in Pana­ma on Thurs­day night for a three-day trip. How­ev­er, dis­as­ter struck less than 24 hours in­to their va­ca­tion.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Fazal said his wife loves to shop, so he took her to a pop­u­lar mall.

He said he was seat­ed on a stool in one of the stores, when his seat be­gan to shake.

“By the time I got up, every­body re­alised it was an earth­quake. It was scam­per­ing like crazy. You were hear­ing the build­ing crack­ing, glass break­ing, and peo­ple run­ning in all dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions to the ex­it,” he said.

Fazal said that while he and his wife were run­ning out of the build­ing, some­one pushed her and she fell.

“I had to stay to the back of her, hop­ing no one tram­pled her. Luck­i­ly, a good Samar­i­tan pulled her up quick­ly and es­cort­ed us to the ex­it. It was a very ter­ri­fy­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Fazal de­scribed the af­ter­math as chaot­ic as af­ter­shocks left the pub­lic on edge.

Keen to cut the trip short and re­turn home to­day, Fazal said he has re­quest­ed to be moved from their 12th-floor room at The Ex­ec­u­tive Ho­tel, Pana­ma City, to the ground floor. If the switch is not fa­cil­i­tat­ed, Fazal said he and his wife in­tend to spend the night in the lob­by.