103 Tsunami: Black Sea, Ukraine
A tsunami caused by a magnitude 7 earthquake began at Black Sea, Ukraine in 103. The water rose as high as 2 meters.
Where the waves reached
The source of the tsunami. No runup with a place is recorded for it.
- Under 1 m
- 1 to 3 m
- 3 to 10 m
- 10 to 30 m
- 30 m and more
- Height not recorded
Travel times
How long the first wave took to reach each part of the ocean, one line for each hour up to 24, estimated from the source and the depth of the sea.
The travel times are computed in your browser, which needs JavaScript.
- 1 to 4 hours
- 5 to 6 hours
- 7 to 14 hours
- 15 hours and more
Computed in your browser the way NOAA’s own travel time maps are: the wave travels at the square root of gravity times the depth, over NOAA’s ETOPO1 depths averaged to a 10 arc-minute grid. Checked against NOAA NCEI’s maps for 21 tsunamis over the first 24 hours, these lines fall within 10 minutes of NCEI’s at half the points compared and within 52 minutes at 9 in 10. They give when the first wave could arrive, not how high it is; bays, harbors and island chains finer than the grid can see it later. Not for use in a warning: see tsunami.gov.
The tsunami
- Date
- 103
- Source
- Black Sea, Ukraine
- Cause
- Earthquake
- Earthquake
- Magnitude 7
- Maximum water height
- 2 m (6.6 ft)
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Tsunami intensity (Soloviev-Imamura)
- 3
- Tsunami magnitude (Iida)
- 1
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Probable tsunami
- Source location
- 44.700° N, 33.300° E
The toll
The record gives no deaths, injuries or damage for this tsunami.
What the record says
NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.
103, Sevastopol Bay (Crimea). Questionable tsunami. Nikonov (1997a, b) based his conclusions on the St. Clements’ miracles as well as on archaeological evidence for damage caused in settlements in the Sevastopol Bay, Crimea, and suggested that a strong earthquake of M7 occurring at the beginning of the 2nd century AD, possibly in 103 AD, caused a strong tsunami in the bay. He estimated that the sea receded 500 m, and occasionally 3–4 km, and that the wave run-up was at least 2 m. The intensity of this tsunami was estimated of k = III (Nikonov, 1997a) or of K = III−IV (Yalciner et al., 2004). We believe that the little information available is not sufficient to estimate tsunami intensity. (reference #9391)
A strong earthquake occurred at Sebastopol Bay, Crimea, Ukraine, in the second century with approximate epicenter coordinates of 44.7 N, 33.3 E, and a speculated magnitude of about 7. The sea receded 500 m and run-up heights exceeded 2 m [Nikonov, 1997]. The intensity of this tsunami can be considered as intensity III–IV according to the new tsunami intensity scale of Papadopoulos and Imamura [2001]. (reference #4213)
103. Probable tsunami. Tsunami in the second century. The sea near the eastern end of the bay receded by a maximum amount of 3-4 km, implying a sea level fall of a few meters. The wave run-up was at least 2 m (Papadopoulos et al., 2011). (reference #11164)
103 (+/-5), SW Crimea. 44.4 N 33.2 E. Probable tsunami. At the coast of Chersonesos, the sea temporarily retreated 3–4 km from the shore of the eastern end of the bay near Inkerman (in the valley of the Chernaya River) (Nikonov, 1997). (reference #12050)
More
Every tsunami in 103The 100sTsunamis of UkraineThe earthquakeAlerts in force
Sources
Tsunami events and runups from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-09-24. NCEI tsunami event 2284.