Significant earthquakes of 1802

December 9, 1802 Earthquake: Sado Island, Ogi, NW Honshu, Japan

December 9, 1802 · M6.6 · 19 deaths · 1,060 houses destroyed

A magnitude 6.6 earthquake struck Sado Island, Ogi, NW Honshu, Japan on December 9, 1802 at 05:00 UTC. It killed 19 people.

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
December 9, 1802
Time
05:00 UTC
Place
Sado Island, Ogi, NW Honshu, Japan
Magnitude
6.6 (Ms)
Epicenter
37.700° N, 138.300° E
Country
Japan
Region
East Asia

The toll

Deaths
19
Damage
Severe (about $5 to $25 million)
Houses destroyed
1,060

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 #414:

December 9 (mistakenly 28), 1802, at about 10:00 [local time] there was an earthquake on the southwest of Sado Island. It was accompanied by an elevation of the coast of the island on a stretch of 25 km from Cape Sawasaki in the west to Akadomari in the east. The greatest rise, equal to 2-2 1/2 m, was apparently registered at Ogi. Inside Ogi Port, the water retreated from shore and the bottom was exposed for a distance of about 100 m. The residents, frightened by the ebb tide, feared a tsunami. However, damage from a tsunami is nowhere mentioned. Apparently, there were no tsunami waves, at least no strong ones, and only an elevation of the island took place, accompanied by buckling.

A very strong earthquake occurred at 14:00. It caused great destruction to homes and monuments. Ogi suffered most of all. Of 453 homes here, 328 homes were destroyed or burned; four people died in the earthquake and 14 people died in the fire. There was also destruction at

Aikawa. The total damage on Sado Island, excluding Ogi, numbered as follows: 732 destroyed homes, 1,423 damaged homes. Epicenter 37.8 N, 138.4 E, magnitude 6.6.

Reference #150:

Before shock, land upheaved, 2m at Ogi where tsunami took place. 450 houses completely destroyed at Ogiminato. 19 deaths, 732 houses destroyed, 328 houses disappeared by fire in total. Epicenter 37.7 N, 138.3 E, magnitude 6.6.

Sources NCEI cites

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

  1. #1097 Imamura, Akitune (1930). Topographical Changes Accompanying Earthquake or Volcanic Eruptions. Publications of the Earthquake Investigation Committee in Foreign Languages, no. 35, Tokyo, p. 16-38.
  2. #1068 Heck, N.H. (1944). Japanese Earthquakes. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, vol. 34, no. 3, July 1944, p. 117-136.
  3. #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.]
  4. #150 Iida, Kumizi (1984). Catalog of tsunamis in Japan and its neighboring countries. Aichi Institute of Technology, Yachigusa, Yakusa-cho, Toyota-shi, 470-03, Japan, 52 p.

Other significant earthquakes nearby

Within 200 km, the deadliest first.

More

Significant earthquakes of 1802The 1800sRecent 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 1560.