1978 Tsunami: Tra CO Coast, Vietnam
A tsunami of unknown cause began at Tra CO Coast, Vietnam in 1978. The water rose as high as 3 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
The tsunami
- Date
- 1978
- Source
- Tra CO Coast, Vietnam
- Cause
- Unknown
- Maximum water height
- 3 m (9.8 ft)
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Very doubtful tsunami
- Source location
- 21.400° N, 108.000° E
The toll
- Damage
- Limited (under about $1 million)
- Houses damaged
- 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.
The first event is abnormal high waves attacking Tra Co coast (Figure 1) in 1978. According to the information from coastal resident community, during a fine day, waves with height of 2 m to 3 m attacked the coast several times, damaged house walls and trees near the coast. To confirm the possibility of the tsunami at the coast, the first author of this report did a survey at the coast during March, 2008. It was found during the survey that waves only caused inundation in a very narrow area, with the largest inundation distance of several ten meters from the water line. Also, infiltrated waves dissipated onshore very rapidly. By comparing damage by the waves with damage by a typical tsunami with the same height (such as the tsunami in West Java July, 2006), it can be remarked that it is difficult to conclude that the above mentioned waves are tsunami. The waves might be wind waves in combination with wave/wind setup and high flood tide. (reference #12499)
More
Every tsunami in 1978The 1900sTsunamis of VietnamAlerts 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 5718.