El Salvador: Landslide and Lahar Hazards              

Earthquake-induced landslide, Santa Tecla, El Salvador, Photo by La Prensa Grafica, AP,  2001

"Although El Salvador, the smallest of the Central American nations, has often been impacted by landslides caused by both heavy rainfall and earthquakes, documentation of socioeconomic losses from these events is limited mainly to those triggered by earthquakes. Rymer and White (1989) noted that for the previous 130 years, 10 major earthquakes had hit El Salvador; each event triggered as many as hundreds to thousands of landslides." From: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 01-0276 2001 by Robert L. Schuster and Lynn M. Highland, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S.A