August 1905 Tsunami: Thompson River, Canada
A tsunami caused by a landslide began at Thompson River, Canada in August 1905. The water rose as high as 6 meters. It killed 15 people.
Where the waves reached
The source of the tsunami. No runup with a place is recorded for it.
- Under 1 m
- 1 to 3 m
- 3 to 10 m
- 10 to 30 m
- 30 m and more
- Height not recorded
The tsunami
- Date
- August 1905
- Source
- Thompson River, Canada
- Cause
- Landslide
- Maximum water height
- 6 m (19.7 ft)
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Waters
- A lake or river, not the ocean
- How certain
- Definite tsunami
- Source location
- 50.420° N, 121.350° W
The toll
- Deaths
- 15
- Damage
- Moderate (about $1 to $5 million)
- Houses destroyed
- Few (about 1 to 50)
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.
In August 1905, a large landslide involving glaciolacustrine silt took place on the right bank of the Thompson River at Spences Bridge (Fig. 2b), in southwestern British Columbia. The landslide rapidly entered the river and crossed it. Debris covered part of a First Nation settlement. The landslide generated a displacement wave in the river that swept over parts of the settlement, ran up the opposite valley wall to a height of 22.5 m above the river, and then flowed back into the channel [...] A wave 4.5 to 6 m high also rushed upstream, carrying debris over 1.5 km. Twenty buildings in settlement, many of them log houses, were destroyed and fifteen people were killed including the elderly Chief Lillooet. (reference #13251)
The landslide generated a 5–6 m high wave that rushed more than 1.5 km upstream, destroying twenty buildings and drowning 15 people. (reference #13250)
More
Every tsunami in 1905The 1900sTsunamis of CanadaAlerts 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 5852.