January 1, 1837 Tsunami: Israel and Syrian Coasts
A tsunami caused by a magnitude 6.4 earthquake began at Israel and Syrian Coasts on January 1, 1837 at 01:00 UTC. It killed 6,000 people, counting the earthquake or eruption that caused it.
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
- January 1, 1837, 01:00 UTC
- Source
- Israel and Syrian Coasts
- Cause
- Earthquake
- Earthquake
- Magnitude 6.4
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Tsunami intensity (Soloviev-Imamura)
- 4
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Probable tsunami
- Source location
- 33.000° N, 35.500° E
The toll
- Deaths
- 6,000 with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Damage
- Extreme (about $25 million or more) with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Houses destroyed
- Very many (over 1,000) 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.
January 1, 1837. Syrian and Israeli coasts of Tiberias (iv). (reference #15)
January 1, 1837. Syrian and Israeli coasts of Tiberias (iv). (reference #20)
January 1, 1837. Syrian and Israeli coasts of Tiberias (m=iv). (reference #28)
January 1, 1837. Strong tsunami along Syrian - Israeli coasts of Tiberias. (reference #1099)
January 1, 1837. Tsunami in the lake of Galilee […] There was a tsunami in the lake of Al- Huleh (reference #3967)
January 1, 1837. Tsunami on the coasts of Israel and Syria; tsunami in Lake Tabariya. Listed as probable tsunami (reference #9275)
January 1, 1837, Palestine and Syria. There is no evidence of a seismic sea wave on the Mediterranean coast. Also no waves have been reported in the Dead Sea. Allegedly, after the earthquake large masses of bitumen were seen floating in the Dead Sea (Robinson 1856). It is said that waves flooded the coast of Lake Tiberi as, but it is not clear whether this happened before, during or after the earthquake (Shkelov 1837; Kerhardene 1859). Aftershocks continued to be felt for almost four months, three of which were particularly important […] It is said that as a result of the earthquake the coast of Lake Tiberias sank and that the lake water rose and swept away many people (Macgregor 1904). This observation on its own does not imply that this change of level of the coast was necessarily of tectonic origin. It may well have been a rather exaggerated observation relating to the usual rapid fluctuation of the level of the lake (Lynch 1852). (reference #9116)
More
Every tsunami in 1837The 1800sTsunamis of IsraelThe earthquakeThis 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 2026-10-01. NCEI tsunami event 702.