(I) El Salvador is a country tectonically so volatile that its capital city has been destroyed ten times in the past four hundred years. (II) In Latin America, El Salvador is not the first country to switch to the dollar, nor is it likely to be the last. (III) At least twelve major earthquakes shook El Salvador during the twentieth century. (IV) And in this century, disaster did not wait long to strike. (V) In early 2001, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale levelled much of the country, killing almost a thousand people.