November 21, 1797 Tsunami: SW. Kyushu Island, Japan
A tsunami caused by a volcano began at SW. Kyushu Island, Japan on November 21, 1797.
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
- November 21, 1797
- Source
- SW. Kyushu Island, Japan
- Cause
- Volcano
- Volcano
- The eruption that caused it
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Questionable tsunami
- Source location
- 31.600° N, 130.700° 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.
under-sea eruption, Sakurajima Volcano.
Reference #150 lists as definite tsunami, however, no other references mentions this tsunami event. Reference #12935 states: "There is also a record of 6 small tsunamis created by these explosions in 1780 and 1781 (Imura, 1998)." It is possible Reference #150 is referring to one of these tsunamis.
More
Every tsunami in 1797The 1700sTsunamis of JapanThe eruptionThis day in weather historyAlerts 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 577.