August 1923 Tsunami: Korea
A tsunami of unknown cause began at Korea in August 1923.
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 1923
- Source
- Korea
- Cause
- Unknown
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Tsunami intensity (Soloviev-Imamura)
- 1.5
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Very doubtful tsunami
The toll
- Damage
- Moderate (about $1 to $5 million)
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:
1923, August. Validity 1. There was a tsunami in Korea. There were enormous losses. [Apparently, these were waves of meteorological origin or the facts are muddled.]
More
Every tsunami in 1923The 1900sTsunamis of KoreaAlerts 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 1523.