Guatemala lies at a tectonic crossroads where the Cocos Plate subducts beneath the Caribbean Plate along the Pacific coast, while the boundary between the Caribbean and North American plates cuts across the country through the Motagua and Chixoy-Polochic fault systems. This double setting makes Guatemala one of the most earthquake- and volcano-prone nations in Central America.
The subduction has built a chain of towering volcanoes, including the perpetually active Fuego, Pacaya and Santiaguito, whose eruptions frequently threaten nearby communities; the Fuego eruption of 2018 killed hundreds. The country's deadliest disaster was the 1976 magnitude 7.5 Motagua fault earthquake, which killed more than 23,000 people and left over a million homeless.