October 16, 1737 Earthquake: Kamchatka, Russia

Reference #413:

1737, October. The tsunami of this year [1737], according to some data, can be considered the strongest of all those known on Kamchatka and the Kurile Islands. Detailed accounts of the phenomenon are listed below.

Through persons who have come from the Kuril, from the islands and from Cape Lopatka, also from Avacha, I have learned that there was a great earth tremor there, which began at all of the places mentioned at the same time.

On the first of the Kurile Islands, called Sumshchu [Shumehu], the earthquake was of the following form. On October 17 [October 6 Julian calendar] at 3 o'clock in the night the earth shook so sharply at first that many huts fell down because of it and the people could not stand up and it continued for a quarter of an hour. This quake came in waves from the SSE, and with the passage of the swells the earth trembled for a long time, and as soon as the shaking ceased suddenly came from the sea with great noise about 3 sazhens [6 m] of water, which immediately went out again far to sea.

With the recession of the water the earth shook again, only very slightly, and afterwards the water again came from the sea to the same place where it had been the first time. After a quarter of an hour the waters of the sea for the third time, with a very great noise, came up to about 10 sazhens higher than the previous places, which carried away many native dwellings.

With the recession of the great water described above, the earth quaked for 14 days, not very sharply. This quaking was like that at the first, in waves, and from before each quake until its very end a great rumbling was audible under the ground.

The quaking of the earth after the great flood was uneven, sometimes five times in 24 hours, sometimes more and sometimes less.

Around Lopatka and at Avacha the quake began at the same date and hour, only it was slight the first time, but the second and third times it was as on the island, very sharp, so that many huts fell down because of it.

Reference #1055:

October 6, 1737. Siberia, Kamchatka and Kurilest, around Avacha, intensity III which corresponds to an earthquake which destroyed towns and devastated districts.

Reference #11168:

A little after the Hokkaido Offshore Earthquake, an earthquake accompanied by tidal waves hit Kamchatskaya on Oct. 17, 1737. Both "Earthquakes" written by Prof. Matsuzawa in 1933 and "Outline of Seismology" written by Prof. Honda in 1943 placed an article reporting that this earthquake killed 30,000 people. This article is a reprint from the "Chronological Table of Major Earthquakes Worldwide" in the "Chronological Scientific Tables," which originally came from Milne (1911). However, the Kamchatskaya Earthquake in the Milne table does not present a death toll; instead, the Calcutta Earthquake placed one line above the Kamchatskaya Earthquake has total fatalities of 300,000. It is presumed that someone mistakenly read one line above and added one more digit to the original figure. Unaware of the mistake, I have been suspicious of the report of 30,000 deaths. I had an opportunity of meeting Dr. Fedotov, the president of the Kamchatskaya Volcano Research Laboratory, and asked him about the number of deaths in the Kamchatskaya Earthquake. Judging from the population at that time, he said that the number of deaths was about 100.

Note: ref #14192 estimates a magnitude 9.3 Mw, however this is based on tsunami data that is later shown to be inaccurate by ref #11787