On August 13, 1868, a powerful earthquake, estimated at magnitude 8.5, struck the coasts of Ecuador and Peru. The quake and the resulting tsunami caused immense destruction, killing an estimated 40,000 people and devastating coastal cities and towns. The disaster was one of the worst in the history of South America and had a profound impact on the region's economy and society. The event also spurred scientific interest in the seismicity of the Pacific coast.

The 1868 earthquake was widely reported in Latin American and international newspapers and inspired a wave of poetic and literary responses. Poets from Ecuador and Peru wrote elegies mourning the dead and reflecting on the vulnerability of their nations to nature's power. This event contributed to a Latin American literary tradition of 'disaster poetry,' which uses catastrophe as a lens to examine social, political, and spiritual issues, influencing writers from the 19th century to the present.