Valparaiso, the Chilean port city of 270,000 ravished by fire, is a UNESCO world heritage site once dubbed “the jewel of the Pacific” by visiting sailors navigating around South America.
The port city is visited by thousands of tourists every year who marvel at the historic centre with its cobbled streets and coloured houses dating from the city’s glory days from the mid-19th century to the early 20th.
Valparaiso became famous as a stopover point for ships steaming down South America heading towards the continent’s southern tip and then the Atlantic Ocean.
The colonial jewel is located on the Pacific coast of Chile, some 120 kilometres (80 miles) north-west of the capital Santiago and is built on 40 hills offering glorious views over the sea.
The city is also famous for its iconic funicular railways up the hills, which are still in use.
Today, however, its glories are faded, with the port seeing a spectacular drop in traffic after the opening of the Panama Canal at the beginning of the 20th century.
It relies heavily on tourism and living standards are lower than the average in the country.
Ironically, two of the city’s tourist attractions — its hills and narrow streets — are complicating the fight against the inferno, which has already claimed 16 lives.
More than 10,000 people were evacuated on Sunday as the blaze ripped through some 500 houses and headed for the historic centre.
Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet has said that the fire, the cause of which remains unknown, is “a terrible tragedy, without doubt the worst fire in the history of Valparaiso.”