August 1766 Tsunami: Martinique, St. Kitts & Nevis
A tsunami caused by an earthquake began at Martinique, St. Kitts & Nevis in August 1766.
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
The tsunami
- Date
- August 1766
- Source
- Martinique, St. Kitts & Nevis
- Cause
- Earthquake
- Earthquake
- The earthquake
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Questionable tsunami
- Source location
- 14.400° N, 61.100° W
The toll
- Damage
- Moderate (about $1 to $5 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 #14362:
"…there was a violent storm on the island of Martinique, followed by a powerful earthquake that shook the island terribly. The city of Saint- Pierre, with the exception of only a few courtyards, was reduced to ruins... 80 ships sank in various harbors of the island... and a large part of the island was submerged by the sea”
The islands of St. Kitts, Nevis, and Marie-Galante, “…there was an extraordinary rise and fall of the tide off the island of St. Christopher. The same was observed off the islands of Nevis and Marie-Galante. The water suddenly rose and fell by 6 feet”
above found in the newspaper St. Petersburg Vedomosti.
Note: it is possible that the storm and earthquake impacts from the same time frame were combined
More
Every tsunami in 1766The 1700sTsunamis of MartiniqueThe 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 6171.