Significant earthquakes of 1673

May 20, 1673 Earthquake: N. Moluccas Islands, Indonesia

May 20, 1673

An earthquake struck N. Moluccas Islands, Indonesia on May 20, 1673. It caused a tsunami.

Map

Where it struck, with the other significant earthquakes within 200 km. Circles are sized and colored by magnitude; select one for its page.

The earthquake

Date
May 20, 1673
Place
N. Moluccas Islands, Indonesia
Epicenter
1.375° N, 127.520° E
Country
Indonesia
Region
Central and South Pacific

The toll

Damage
Limited (under about $1 million)

Where the literature gives no number, NCEI records a description on a scale of 1 to 4, printed here in its words. Damage is in millions of US dollars of the year of the event, not adjusted for inflation.

What the record says

NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.

Reference #521:

1673 May 20. Gilolo and Ternate in the Moluccas. Accompanied by an eruption of a volcano at Gammacanore in Gilolo.

Reference #414:

1673, May 20 is an additional date given for the tsunami of 1673, August 12.

Sources NCEI cites

The publications NCEI lists for this record. The numbers match the “reference #” notes in its account above.

  1. #414 Soloviev, S.L., and Ch.N. Go (1974). A catalogue of tsunamis on the western shore of the Pacific Ocean [dates include 173-1968. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Nauka Publishing House, Moscow, 439 p. [Canadian Translation of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences no. 5077, 1984, translation available from Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, National Research Council, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A OS2, 447 p.]
  2. #521 Mallet, Robert (1853). Catalogue of Recorded Earthquakes from 1606 B.C. to A.D. 1850, Part I, 1606 B.C. to 1755 A.D. Report of the 22nd Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at Hull, Sept., 1853, John Murray, London, p. 1-176.

Other significant earthquakes nearby

Within 200 km, the deadliest first.

More

Significant earthquakes of 1673The 1600sRecent earthquakes near hereThis day in weather history

Sources

Significant earthquakes from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-10-01. NCEI earthquake 5980.