May 1765 Tsunami: South China Sea

Name: May 1765 Tsunami: South China Sea
Location: South China Sea

May 1765 · 9 m · 10,000 deaths · 4,000 houses destroyed · Very doubtful tsunami

A tsunami of unknown cause began at South China Sea in May 1765. The water rose as high as 9 meters. Its effects were recorded at 1 place. It killed 10,000 people.

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: May 1765
Source: South China Sea
Cause: Unknown
Maximum water height: 9 m (29.5 ft)
Runups recorded: 1
Tsunami intensity (Soloviev-Imamura): 2
Tsunami magnitude (Iida): 1
Waters: Ocean
How certain: Very doubtful tsunami
Source location: 23.120° N, 113.250° E

The toll

Deaths: 10,000
Houses destroyed: 4,000

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:

1765, May, end of the month, validity 2. There were waves 9 m high (?) near Kwangchow (China). The sea suddenly rose and washed away 10,000 people. There was no earthquake. This was probably a wave of meteorological origin.

[In Berninghausen's opinion (ref #40), which is shared by Cox (ref #2689), this and the description of event in 1765 November 22 (in Macao) relate to the same incident.]

Reference #40:

1765, May, end of month. China. The sea suddenly rose 9 meters (30 feet) near Canton (23o07'N., 113o15'E.) and swept away 10,000 of the inhabitants. No earthquake was reported, (Mallet and Mallet 1858).

Reference #1879:

1765, May. At the end of this month the sea suddenly rose 30 feet near Canton in China, and swept away 10,000 of the inhabitants. No earthquake mentioned.

Reference #79:

1765, May. S. China Sea. Wave height 9 m near Canton. Sea suddenly rose and swept away 10,000 persons. No quake reported. Possibly meteorological in origin.

Reference #150:

1765, May, validity 1. S. China. Sea suddenly rose and swept away 10,000 persons. No quake.

Reference #12279:

About the same time the tides rose so high in the neighborhood of Canton, in China, that 4000 houses were swept away, and a whole city, in the next province, where the waters rose thirty feet was swallowed up with 10,000 of its inhabitants.

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
Canton	China	8	9		Eyewitness observation of water height		10,000

Every tsunami in 1765 The 1700s Tsunamis of China 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 484.