May 8, 1966 Tsunami: Eastern Norway
A tsunami caused by a landslide began at Eastern Norway on May 8, 1966. The water rose as high as 6 meters.
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
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
- May 8, 1966
- Source
- Eastern Norway
- Cause
- Landslide
- Maximum water height
- 6 m (19.7 ft)
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Tsunami intensity (Soloviev-Imamura)
- 3
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Definite tsunami
- Source location
- 59.600° N, 10.633° E
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.
2 flood waves, Oslofjorden (reference #4139)
1966 May 8; cause of wave: submarine slide (?); some damage; wave 3-6 m high. The most recent example of waves of unknown origin occurred in the Oslofjord south of Hurum on May 8, 1966. On the calm waters of the fjords two waves suddenly arose. The first "foaming and dirty" wave was estimated to 3 m height, the second "shiny" wave to 6 m. The waves were observed both from the land and from the fjord. At one locality on Hurum traces of waves was seen 48 m from the shore and up to a height of 4 m above sea level. A wreck of a 60 foot boat was moved 350 m outwards and on the shore blocks up to 2 cu m in size were moved. No earthquake was registered neither in Norway nor in other countries of such a magnitude or at such a time as to be the cause of these waves. It is, therefore, assumed that the waves were caused by a submarine slide. (reference #13255)
More
Every tsunami in 1966The 1900sTsunamis of NorwayThis 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 4242.