Mr. Nugent and family's protection and escape during the Arica earthquake

“In a letter dated Arica, Mr. Nugent, agent of the Pacific Steamship Company, and British consul at that port, and written to the manager of the company at Panama, says—‘Into other matters it is now useless to enter, as I write under the shadow of a great grief. Arica no longer exists; about five o’clock in the afternoon of the 13th we were visited with a tremendous earthquake. I had barely time to get my wife and children into the street, when the whole of the walls of my house fell—fell is hardly the word, as they were blown out as if they were spit at me; at the same time the earth opened, probably two or three inches, and belched out dust, accompanied with a terrible stench as of powder; the air was darkened and I could not see my wife, who was within two feet of me with the children. If this had lasted any time we must have been suffocated, but in about a couple of minutes it cleared, and, collecting my household gods together, I then started for the hills. Those we passed through falling houses, when we saw men struck down, some others maimed, is to me a mystery, but a merciful Providence was over us. We reached the hills, and from that point of vantage saw the sea recede, and then return in a wave fifty feet high, which swallowed up the town, and the very spot where my house had stood was covered by the sea. We are now living in a tent, and I am thankful to say that my wife and children are safe, though they have suffered much from the shock and the exposure. I have lost everything, but I am thankful that my life and the lives of my family have been spared. It is a terrible calamity, and one that will be long remembered in this part of the world.’”

— Mr. Nugent, letter to the manager of the Pacific Steamship Company, as quoted in The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star