September 20, 1897 Tsunami: Sulu Sea, Philippines

Name: September 20, 1897 Tsunami: Sulu Sea, Philippines
Start: 1897-09-20
Location: Sulu Sea, Philippines

September 20, 1897 · 2 m · Very doubtful tsunami

A tsunami caused by a magnitude 8.6 earthquake began at Sulu Sea, Philippines on September 20, 1897 at 19:06 UTC. The water rose as high as 2 meters. Its effects were recorded at 1 place.

Where the waves reached

The source (white) and every runup with a place, colored by the water height recorded there. A ring is a runup NCEI marks doubtful.

Under 1 m
1 to 3 m
3 to 10 m
10 to 30 m
30 m and more
Height not recorded

Tsunami warnings in force

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: September 20, 1897, 19:06 UTC
Source: Sulu Sea, Philippines
Cause: Earthquake
Earthquake: Magnitude 8.6, 33 km deep
Maximum water height: 2 m (6.6 ft)
Runups recorded: 1
Tsunami intensity (Soloviev-Imamura): 1
Waters: Ocean
How certain: Very doubtful tsunami
Source location: 6.000° N, 122.000° E

The toll

Damage: Limited (under about $1 million) with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
Houses damaged: Few (about 1 to 50) 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.

Reference #414:

1897, September 21, 3:13 [local time; Sept 20, 1897, 19:13 UTC]. There was an earthquake, which was felt with a force of 7 degrees (VIII Rossi-Forel) in the northeastern part of the Sulu archipelago, and with a force of 6 degrees (VII) on the islands of Mindanao and Jolo. The size of the area of perceptibility was 600 x 500 km. Numerous aftershocks occurred. There was confused data about the occurrence of a tsunami. A report from Dapitan about the subsequent catastrophic, earthquake, which occurred 10 hours later and was accompanied by a tsunami which was the strongest yet known on the Philippine Islands mentions that after each of these two earthquakes the water rose 2 m and the people living on the coast were forced to leave their homes (Moso, 1908 b, 1909 b).

Every runup

Nearest the source first. Heights are above sea level at the time; a tide gauge reads half the wave’s full height.

Where	Country	Km from source	Water height, m	Inland, m	Measured by	First wave, UTC	Deaths
Dapitan	Philippines	333	2		Eyewitness observation of water height

Every tsunami in 1897 The 1800s Tsunamis of Philippines The earthquake This day in weather history Alerts 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 5455.