San Francisco Church (Valparaíso)

The church served as lighthouse to the navigants who were arriving Valparaíso until the early 20th century, being the first recognizable point of the city.

[1] In the middle of a reconstruction process after the 2010 Chile earthquake, the church was severely damaged by a fire in September 2010.

[4] San Francisco Church suffered a great fire on 2 September 2010, in the middle of a reconstruction process which had started in June 2010.

[2][5] The Ministry of Public Works of Chile estimated the damage at around 2.500.000.000 Chilean pesos (5 million US dollars).

The fire started at 04:30 local time (08:30 UTC) for reasons under investigation, in the Faculty of Mathematics of the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso.