October 19, 1899 Tsunami: Bismarck Sea, Papua New Guinea

Name: October 19, 1899 Tsunami: Bismarck Sea, Papua New Guinea
Start: 1899-10-19
Location: Bismarck Sea, Papua New Guinea

October 19, 1899 · Questionable tsunami

A tsunami caused by an earthquake began at Bismarck Sea, Papua New Guinea on October 19, 1899 at 09:16 UTC. Its effects were recorded at 2 places.

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: October 19, 1899, 09:16 UTC
Source: Bismarck Sea, Papua New Guinea
Cause: Earthquake
Earthquake: The earthquake
Runups recorded: 2
Tsunami intensity (Soloviev-Imamura): 1.5
Waters: Ocean
How certain: Questionable tsunami
Source location: 5.000° S, 148.000° E

The toll

Damage: Moderate (about $1 to $5 million)
Houses destroyed: Many (101 to 1,000)

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:

1899, validity 2. On the eastern coast of New Ireland, there was an earthquake and a destructive tsunami which destroyed many huts on the coast. Waves were also observed in Albatross Strait between New Ireland and Baudissin Island (Sieberg, 1910, 1932; Iida et al., 1967). [It is possible that these data relate to the earthquake of October 19, 1899, at 9h16m, which was registered by seismic stations in the region of New Britain (Milne, 1912 a).]

Reference #79:

1899. East coast of new Ireland. Several houses wrecked.

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
Albatross Strait, New Ireland	Papua New Guinea	391			Eyewitness observation of water height
East Coast, New Ireland	Papua New Guinea	481			Eyewitness observation of water height

Every tsunami in 1899 The 1800s Tsunamis of Papua New Guinea 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 5562.