1873 Tsunami: Maclay Coast, Papua New Guinea

Reference #414:

1873 ("A few months after 24.XII.1872."), validity 3, 5.5 N, 146 E. When Miklucho-Maklay landed in New Guinea for the second time on 27.VI.1876, he noticed great changes in the landscape. The Finisterre range had lost its rich foliage in places. In many places on the coast, solitary maimed tree trunks remained in place of the dense forest, particularly in the mouths of the Kamrau, Koli, and Kabenau Rivers and on Cape Gabina.

According to local residents, one night there was an earthquake, consisting of several shocks, and the huts crumbled. The mountain settlements of Englam-Mana, Sambal-Mana and Saguana-Mana suffered especially. Somewhat later, at dawn, strong waves fell on shore, and destroyed the forest in many places. It washed up pebbles on shore in such amounts that not a few rivers were dammed. High flood tides and a heavy surf were still noticed at sea during the whole of the next day.

On visiting the mountain villages, he found numerous yawning cracks in the ground running north-south. The blockage of the mouths of the rivers entailed a change in their channels, while the subsidence of some parts of the coast led to the formation of numerous lagoons and swamps.

Reference #79:

1873, Spring, source area: Macclay Co, New Guinea, Vilyaz Strait, observed on Maclay Coast, New Guinea.

Reference #99:

1873, Spring, Maclay Coast, New Guinea.

1873-1876, June. Remarks by de Miklouho- Maclay, 1884 (ref #12433). The natives told me that during my absence they had experienced on the coast and the mountains several earthquakes, on which occasions some natives were killed by the falling of cocoanut trees in the villages, which in falling destroyed the huts. The villages on the coast suffered more on account of unusually big waves which followed soon after the earthquake, breaking down the cocoanut trees and sweeping away a few huts nearest to the beach. In revisiting the coast villages, I found many not unimportant changes: stretches of destroyed forest by tidal waves after the earthquake; alteration in the direction of some small streams, the old mouths of which had been closed by bars of sand left behind by waves. He noted intensive landsliding which suggested an epicentre in the Finisterre Range.

Reference #11528:

Around sunrise, a tsunami struck that destroyed forests and threw debris on land, blocking the mouths of river estuaries.