March 1675 Tsunami: Sulu Sea, Philippines

Name: March 1675 Tsunami: Sulu Sea, Philippines
Location: Sulu Sea, Philippines

March 1675 · Questionable tsunami

A tsunami caused by an earthquake began at Sulu Sea, Philippines in March 1675. Its effects were recorded at 1 place.

Where the waves reached

The source (white) and every runup with a place, colored by the water height recorded there. A ring is a runup NCEI marks doubtful.

Under 1 m
1 to 3 m
3 to 10 m
10 to 30 m
30 m and more
Height not recorded

Tsunami warnings in force

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: March 1675
Source: Sulu Sea, Philippines
Cause: Earthquake
Earthquake: The earthquake
Runups recorded: 1
Tsunami intensity (Soloviev-Imamura): 1
Waters: Ocean
How certain: Questionable tsunami
Source location: 13.000° N, 121.000° E

The toll

Damage: Limited (under about $1 million) with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
Houses destroyed: Few (about 1 to 50) with the earthquake or eruption that caused it

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:

In March (February), 1675, there was an earthquake stronger than usual on Luzon and Mindoro Islands. A depression formed on Mindoro Island near the small city of Pola at the foot of one of the mountains. The sea penetrated along it onto the land and flooded a vast and very fertile plain, making it unsuitable for cultivation and habitation. [The possibility of a tsunami is not excluded, although there are no direct indications.]

Reference #10958:

[…] fissure formed from where the sea entered, causing extensive flooding to an extensive fertile land (Santa Ines, 1676; Repetti, 1946). According to Iida et al (1967), Sieberg (1932) also mentioned “waves” but with no other details. The description of the sea entering the land, if attributable to an earthquake, could be due to liquefaction or tsunami, depending on how the account is interpreted. Another interpretation is that the fissure could be due to lateral spreading. Subsequently, the area could have liquefied causing a lowering of the land followed by the entry of the sea water. Another possible interpretation is that both liquefaction and tsunami happened. Meanwhile, Berninghausen (1969) attributes the sinking of the land to subsidence rather than to a tsunami.

Every runup

Nearest the source first. Heights are above sea level at the time; a tide gauge reads half the wave’s full height.

Where	Country	Km from source	Water height, m	Inland, m	Measured by	First wave, UTC	Deaths
Pola, Mindoro Island	Philippines	50			Eyewitness observation of water height

Every tsunami in 1675 The 1600s Tsunamis of Philippines The earthquake Alerts 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 318.