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Tsunami Timeline

By TragerBrown25
  • Sep 20, 1498

    Enshunada Sea, Japan

    Enshunada Sea, Japan
    This earthquake had a magnitude of 8.3. The waves were powerful enough to breach a split, which had previously separated Lake Hamana from the sea. There were reports of homes flooding and being swept away throughout the region, with a total of at least 31,000 people killed.

  • Ise Bay, Japan

    Ise Bay, Japan
    This earthquake had a magnitude of 8.2. The town of Nagahama experienced an outbreak of fire as the earthquake first occurred, destroying half the city. The Ise Bay tsunamis caused more than 8000 deaths and a large amount damage.

  • Nankaido, Japan

    Nankaido, Japan
    This earthquake had a magnitude of 8.4. The sea waves were as high as 25 m to hammer into the Pacific coasts of Kyushyu, Shikoku and Honshin. A total of nearly 30,000 buildings were damaged in the affected regions and about 30,000 people were killed.

  • Ryuku Islands, Japan

    Ryuku Islands, Japan
    This earthquake had a magnitude of 7.4. It is commonly cited that the waves that struck Ishigaki Island was 85.4 m high, but it appears this is due to a confusion of the original Japanese measurements, and is more accurately estimated to have been around 11 to 15 m high. The tsunami killed nearly 12,000 people in total.

  • Krakatau, Indonesia

    Krakatau, Indonesia
    This tsunami event is actually linked to the explosion of the Krakatau caldera volcano, so there was no magnitude. Multiple waves as high as 37 m were propagated by the violent eruptions and demolished the towns of Anjer and Merak. This event killed around 40,000 people in total.

  • Sanriku, Japan

    Sanriku, Japan
    This earthquake had a magnitude of 7.6. The tsunami was reported at Shirahama to have reached a height of 38.2 m. There was damage to more than 11,000 homes and some 22,000 people were killed.

  • Sumatra, Indonesia

    Sumatra, Indonesia
    This earthquake had a magnitude of 9.1! The fault zone that caused the tsunami was roughly 1300 km long, vertically displacing the sea floor by several metres. An estimated 10 billion USD worth of damages, with around 230,000 people reported dead.

  • North Pacific Coast, Japan

    North Pacific Coast, Japan
    This earthquake had a magnitude of 9.0! This powerful tsunami travelled 800 km per hour with 10m-high waves swept over the east coast of Japan. It ended up killing more than 18,000 people.