January 14, 1884 Tsunami: Montevideo, Uruguay

1884, January 14, 7:30 a.m. local time. 34 degrees 53'S, 56 degrees 11'W. Wave phenomena lasting about 15 minutes inundated part of the town. The weather was fine; the direction of the wave was from the Patagonian coast. Several people were drowned on the south side of the town." He references Nature (1884). (reference #43)

1884, January 14. An earthquake-wave, lasting about fifteen minutes, and inundating part of the town, was noticed at Montevideo on January 14, at 7.30 a.m. The weather was fine; the direction of the wave was from the Patagonian coast. Several people were drowned on the south side of the town. (reference #1884)

1884, January 14. Montevideo, Uruguay, inundated by a tidal wave, several drowned. (reference #8856)

Reference #14021 (unofficial translation):

[…] when I got out from under the water and stood up again, I noticed with surprise that the sea had gone down a lot. A minute before, the water was almost up to my shoulders, and now it was barely up to my waist. I thought that in going under I might have been moving towards the shore instead of going out to sea; but I soon dismissed that supposition when I saw that the water was still going down, still going down, and trickling over the beach as if the bottom of the bay had suddenly been pierced. This seemed to me very strange indeed, and I was still looking at the shore and seeing how the sands, carved into symmetrical scales by the waves, were exposed, when I turned my face when I heard a noise from the east coming from the sea, and I saw that the water was still running down the beach.

And I saw... something I had not dared to hope for on foot. The ships of the port had disappeared behind an immense wall of water that stretched from shore to shore and advanced solemn, majestic, imposing, without a crown of foam; something as if suddenly the gate of a dam had been lifted and the retained waters were rushing over the river's slope, and the water that had been held back was rushing into the water.

I ran to the shore, gained height, but even so I could not avoid being in the water. The wave overtook me and spread out on the shore, reaching where the water rarely reaches at the highest floods. There, just then, that imposing mass of turbulent foam was unleashed, flooding the beach, running through the deep tracks traced by the carriages, filling the footprints of the horses stamped on the sand, rushing over all the slopes, until at last, the sea, having dominated those dominions that it barely manages to lick in its greatest overflows, calmed down as if to rest from that effort. And so it remained for some minutes, until it retreated again to advance again with less thrust. Again he retreated, and again he advanced, but now without strength, losing ground with each new onslaught, as if the first had been the supreme effort in which he had exhausted all his vigour.

[…] had upset the whole bay, tossed all the ships about at its pleasure, smashed wharves, seized clothes, and frightened those like me who were confident in its apparent gentleness.

The sea, after its third onslaught, lay still, rippled only by a gentle breeze rising from the S-E. The sky, spotted for a few minutes with dark patches of cloud, cleared, and in the limpid blue of the ether, the sun shone with burning rays.

[dated 15 January 1884]