Nicaragua is highly volcanic and seismic because the Cocos Plate subducts beneath the Caribbean Plate along the Middle America Trench off its Pacific coast. This subduction has created a chain of volcanoes running the length of the country, and the associated crustal faults cut directly through populated areas, including the capital, Managua.
The Nicaraguan volcanic chain includes active peaks such as Momotombo, Cerro Negro, one of the youngest volcanoes in the Americas, and Masaya, whose accessible lava lake glows within a national park. Managua has been devastated by earthquakes twice in the twentieth century, in 1931 and again in 1972, when a magnitude 6.2 quake killed around 10,000 people and levelled the city centre.