Old Cathedral of Managua (Catedral de Managua)

The facade and bell towers of the Old Cathedral of Managua may look impressive, but get closer and you’ll see there’s almost nothing else left of the structure. The 1972 earthquake all but destroyed the church, and it was left as a ruin, unsafe for visitors to do more than walk around the building. Initially, promises to rebuild the cathedral were made by the government, but locals gave up hope of that happening when a new cathedral was built elsewhere in the 1990s instead.

One of the interesting bits of information about the Old Cathedral of Managua is that it was not only originally designed by an architect in Belgium, the cathedral was actually shipped from Belgium to Managua and reconstructed on site. The cathedral had barely been finished when an earthquake hit in 1931, but the structure survived that first quake. The 1972 earthquake, however, was too much for the church. Visitors used to be able to walk through the ruins of the cathedral, but more recently it has been declared too unstable and the interior is now off-limits.