ABSTRACT
Central America is a region located near the active convergent margin formed by the interaction of the Cocos and Caribbean plates. Since Cretaceous, the tectonic stress has been acting over the region, deforming rocks, fracturing the crust, and generating highlevels of seismicity. The first impacts on human life would naturally have occurred during Pre-Columbian time. We look in these artifacts and ruins for evidence of earthquake damage, but it has been only in the past two hundred years, of PostColonization times that the first reports of destructive earthquakes have appeared, and with this era have come new ideas and a full realization of the seismic potential of Central America (CA). At the present, the stress extends outward from the eastward advancing edge of the Cocos plate, for hundreds of kilometers towards the continent and results in many earthquakes that sometimes strike population centers causing tremendous damage and great disasters. The most recent seismic catastrophes are those of Nicaragua, 1972; Guatemala, 1976; El Salvador, 1986; Costa Rica, 1990-91; and El Salvador, 2001. These violent shocks caused terror, death, and destruction, and confirmed that we live in an earthquake-prone area.
