April 23, 1868 Tsunami: SW England, United Kingdom
A tsunami of unknown cause began at SW England, United Kingdom on April 23, 1868. The water rose as high as 9 meters.
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
- April 23, 1868
- Source
- SW England, United Kingdom
- Cause
- Unknown
- Maximum water height
- 9 m (29.5 ft)
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Very doubtful tsunami
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.
Event generated by no plausible cause. Burton Bradstock inundated by a rush of water from the sea (r559). At Lyme Regis the weather was calm, the sea rose 60-90 cm, waves rolling ashore with deafering roar (r559). Event reliability 0 (Very improbably tsunami). (reference #4139)
Tsunami Origin Unknown, but not associated with a local storm […] at Burton Bradstock, on 23 April 1868, when the village “was inundated by a rush of water from the sea….The sea was calm” (Dawson and others 2000,66). At Lyme Regis, waves up to approximately 9 meters high also appeared on that day. The authors cited a similarity of this event with the February 1979 waves and reported that it had been described as a “ghost storm.” (reference #14268)
Described as a ‘ghost storm’ as the sea was calm with no prevailing wind. At Lyme Regis, waves of up to 9m appeared that day also. These were most likely long period swell waves. (reference #14269)
More
Every tsunami in 1868The 1800sTsunamis of United KingdomThis 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 4304.