May 7, 1846 Tsunami: Lake Taupo, North Island, New Zealand
A tsunami of unknown cause began at Lake Taupo, North Island, New Zealand on May 7, 1846.
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
- May 7, 1846
- Source
- Lake Taupo, North Island, New Zealand
- Cause
- Unknown
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Definite tsunami
- Source location
- 38.960° S, 175.730° 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.
In 1846, on May 07, the Hipaua Cliffs behind the village of Te Rapa suddenly collapsed in a landslide that buried the village in mud reportedly to a depth of 3 m. Fifty four of the 56 people in the village were killed in the landslide, which flowed into the lake carrying trees with it.
The site was devastated again and many killed by a landslide from the same source in 1910 March 20 (q.v.). On that occasion, a tsunami occurred in the lake, the surges being large enough to cause problems for some children in the water on the opposite shore (Motutere?).
While no waves or surges are mentioned in the account of the 1846 event, a taniwa [taniwha] is, i.e. "The natives say that afterwards the Taniwa fled across the lake to Motutere and thence to Waikato, whence he will go to the sea and perish there; they shall be no more troubled with him; they saw the splash of his tail as lie crossed the lake" (New Zealand Spectator & Cook's Strait Guardian 1 July 1846). According to King et al. (2007), events involving large waves, storm surges and tsunamis were commonly explained as the work of taniwha in Maori traditional stories. In light of this, it is likely that the taniwha in the lake after the landslide in 1846 represents a tsunami.
The occurrence of a tsunami is given a validity of 3 (probable).
Interestingly, the account indicates another landslide 10 years before 1846, before organised European settlement. (reference #5324)
More
Every tsunami in 1846The 1800sTsunamis of New ZealandThis 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 5551.