July 12, 1881 Tsunami: Fiji Islands

Capt. Beatson informs us that yesterday morning [July 13, 1881, 05 30 Local Time] we were visited by an unusual rise of waters which came in the shape of a tidal wave. In Levuka Creek it rose at least eighteen inches above the highest mark. This was probably an actual tsunami with earthquake focus too far away to be felt at Levuka. Possibly the source was north of Vanua Levu.[…] The first report was of a small tsunami at Levuka in 1881 and another in 1884 described a typical tsunami which was noted several years earlier on the northern Vanua Levu coastline and which was associated with an earthquake to the north. Probably both reports refer to the same tsunami occurrence.(reference #1184)

A correspondent, writing from Macuata, thus describes a recently experienced shock of earthquake [January 1884]... The shock was a very severe one; by far the most severe that I have experienced during thirteen years residence in Fiji... During my residence here I have at various times felt the shocks of seven earthquakes, but this is the first occasion on which I have noticed the rumbling sound described. Some of the previous shocks have been attended by tidal disturbances, the rise and fall being as much as six feet in half an hour..." (reference #11526)