Significant earthquakes of 1899

September 29, 1899 Earthquake: Banda Sea, Indonesia

September 29, 1899 · M7.8 · 2,460 deaths

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Banda Sea, Indonesia on September 29, 1899 at 17:03 UTC. It killed 2,460 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
September 29, 1899
Time
17:03 UTC
Place
Banda Sea, Indonesia
Magnitude
7.8 (Ms)
Epicenter
3.000° S, 128.500° E
Country
Indonesia
Region
Central and South Pacific

The toll

Deaths
2,460
Injuries
300
Damage
Severe (about $5 to $25 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.

From Wikipedia

On 30 September 1899 the island of Ceram, Dutch East Indies, was struck by an Ms 7.8 earthquake which was accompanied by a 10-meter landslide-induced tsunami. According to the Batavian Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory, the shock occurred at 01:42 AM Amahei local time. The study about the quake and its effects was published by Dr. R. D. M. Verbeek in an article named Short Report about the earth- and sea-quake in Ceram, the 30th September 1899, which serves as the only extensive source on this earthquake.

Text from Wikipedia, “1899 Ceram earthquake”, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Quoted as written; the full article has the rest.

What the record says

NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.

Reference #414:

September 30, 1899, 1:42 [local time], there was a destructive earthquake and tsunami with source off the southern coast of Ceram Island. The earthquake was felt with greatest force at the settlements of Hatusua, Paulohi, Makariki, Tehoro and Wolu and was connected with a shift along the tectonic fault which separates the peninsula in the southwestern part of Ceram Island from the main part of the island.

On many areas of the coast of Ceram Island, large massifs of loose materials, mainly Quarternary sandy-clay and rubbly-pebbly alluvial deposits, tumbled into the water. These slumps, together with assumed tectonic dislocations on the bottom of large bays, generated tsunami waves, which reached a height of 9 m in some places.

2460 deaths and 300 injuries from the earthquake and tsunami.

Reference #1006:

Sept 29, 1899, 17:03 UTC, earthquake at 3 S, 128.5 E, magnitude 7.8.

Reference #1002:

Sept 29, 1899, earthquake in Ceram, magnitude 7.8.

Reference #1051:

Sept 30, 1899 [local time] earthquake in Seram, 3864 deaths.

3864 deaths (reference #4659)

2460 deaths (reference #12917)

Sources NCEI cites

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

  1. #1002 Lomnitz, Cinna (1974). Development in Geotectonics #5, Global Tectonics and Earthquake Risk, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1974.
  2. #1006 Richter, Charles F. (1958). Elementary Seismology. W.H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco, California, 768 p.
  3. #1051 Munchener Ruckversicherungs-Gesellschaft (1998). World Map of Natural Hazards, Munich Federal Republic of Germany
  4. #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.]
  5. #4659 Hamzah, Latief, Puspito, Nanang T., Imamura, Fumihiko (2000). Tsunami catalog and zones in Indonesia. Journal of Natural Disaster Science, vol. 22, no. 1, p. 25-43.
  6. #12917 BMKG (Indonesia) (2019). Katalog Tsunami Indonesia, Tahun 416-2018.

Other significant earthquakes nearby

Within 200 km, the deadliest first.

More

Significant earthquakes of 1899The 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 6229.