December 26, 1939 Tsunami: South Black Sea, Turkey
A tsunami caused by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake began at South Black Sea, Turkey on December 26, 1939 at 23:57:23 UTC. The water rose as high as 0.5 meters. Its effects were recorded at 12 places in at least 4 countries. It killed 32,700 people, counting the earthquake or eruption that caused it.
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
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
- December 26, 1939, 23:57:23 UTC
- Source
- South Black Sea, Turkey
- Cause
- Earthquake
- Earthquake
- Magnitude 7.8, 20 km deep
- Maximum water height
- 0.5 m (1.6 ft)
- Runups recorded
- 12
- Tsunami intensity (Soloviev-Imamura)
- 4
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Definite tsunami
- Source location
- 39.907° N, 39.586° E
The toll
- Deaths
- 32,700 with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Injuries
- 100,000 with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Damage
- $20 million with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Houses destroyed
- 120,000 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.
1939, December 26. An earthquake on December 26, 1939 in Turkey between Erzincan and Erzurum caused a small tsunami in the Black Sea. In Fatsa, a harbor on the Black Sea coast of Turkey, the sea receded 50 m from the shore. Then the sea dashed up the shore as far as 20 m above the normal water level [inundation]. The wave action slowly diminished until the sea returned to its normal state. A small tsunami reached the Black Sea coast of the [former] USSR and was recorded by tide gauges. These waves were recorded by almost all of the tide gauge stations on the Black Sea coast of the Crimea and the Caucasus. The tsunami began with the rise of the sea level in all places except Batumi. Batumi was the nearest [former] USSR tide gauge to the epicenter of the earthquake. The comparison of the calculated wave travel-time data with the observed data suggests that the source of the tsunami should have been either on the shore of the Black Sea near the coast of Turkey, between Batumi and Sinop, or inland. It is difficult to say anything definite about the mechanism of generation of this tsunami. It is not known whether it was generated by tectonic movement, or as that of a secondary phenomena, such as the landslide pointed out by B. Gutenberg Gutenberg, 1939] in 1939 in connection with the Atacama earthquake on November 11, 1922. (reference #2778)
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Giresun | Turkey | 152 | Eyewitness observation of water height | ||||
| Ordu | Turkey | 187 | Eyewitness observation of water height | ||||
| Fatsa | Turkey | 216 | 0.5 | 20 | Eyewitness observation of water height | ||
| Unye | Turkey | 237 | Eyewitness observation of water height | ||||
| Batumi | Georgia | 259 | 0.04 | Tide gauge (half the maximum wave height) | day 26, 23:57 | ||
| Poti | Georgia | 307 | Tide gauge (half the maximum wave height) | ||||
| Tuapse | Russia | 468 | 0.2 | Tide gauge (half the maximum wave height) | day 27, 00:47 | ||
| Novorossiysk | Russia | 555 | 0.27 | Tide gauge (half the maximum wave height) | day 27, 01:10 | ||
| Kerch | Ukraine | 657 | 0.12 | Tide gauge (half the maximum wave height) | day 27, 02:39 | ||
| Feodosiya | Ukraine | 666 | 0.13 | Tide gauge (half the maximum wave height) | day 27, 01:17 | ||
| Yalta | Ukraine | 678 | 0.07 | Tide gauge (half the maximum wave height) | day 27, 00:50 | ||
| Sevastopol | Ukraine | 723 | 0.25 | Tide gauge (half the maximum wave height) | day 27, 02:12 |
More
Every tsunami in 1939The 1900sTsunamis of TurkeyThe earthquakeThis day in weather historyAlerts 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 2301.