April 22, 1863 Tsunami: Aegean Sea, Greece
A tsunami caused by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake began at Aegean Sea, Greece on April 22, 1863 at 20:30 UTC. It killed 300 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
- April 22, 1863, 20:30 UTC
- Source
- Aegean Sea, Greece
- Cause
- Earthquake
- Earthquake
- Magnitude 7.8
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Questionable tsunami
- Source location
- 36.500° N, 28.000° E
The toll
- Deaths
- 300 with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Injuries
- Many (about 101 to 1,000) with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Damage
- Severe (about $5 to $25 million) with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Houses destroyed
- 2,050 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.
NOTE: Reference #2130 lists 22 March 1863, while Reference #9275 lists possible dates of 22 March 1863; 22 April 1863, 20:30; 22 April 1863, 21:30. References # 9116 and others list 22 April.
Ref #2130:
1863, March 22, 22h15m. Aegean Sea, island of Rhodes. A destructive earthquake occurred. According to eyewitnesses it included two shock, the second shock was the main one and lasted from 20 sec to 1 min, according to different estimates; it had a wave character with superposition of a vertical vibration. It was preceded and accompanied by a long underground boom.
The earthquake was followed by many aftershocks noted on the Island of Rhodes, in Izmir and other places. It coincided with a storm that raged in the eastern Mediterranean Sea on March 22, therefore reports on the earthquake got mixed up with information on the storm and calamities at sea, and the information was not of quite clear origin.
A loud noise from the sea was heard during the earthquake in Rhodes on March 22. The inhabitants of the town were afraid that the tidal waves would flood the island during the shocks which preceded the earthquake at 21h on march 16.
Ref #9116:
1863, April 22. There is no conclusive evidence that the earthquake was associated with a seismic sea wave. Abnormally large waves reported from ports in the region on the night of the earthquake were most probably standing waves or due to the exceptionally bad weather which prevailed at the time in this part of the Mediterranean.
Ref #13796:
Neither tsunami nor coastal uplift have been reported and this may imply source at intermediate-depth which, however, is weakened by the intense aftershock activity
More
Every tsunami in 1863The 1800sTsunamis of GreeceThe 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 2026-09-24. NCEI tsunami event 3445.