June 12, 1985 Tsunami: Quyuan, Zigui County, China
A tsunami caused by a landslide began at Quyuan, Zigui County, China on June 12, 1985. The water rose as high as 54 meters. It killed 10 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
- June 12, 1985
- Source
- Quyuan, Zigui County, China
- Cause
- Landslide
- Maximum water height
- 54 m (177.2 ft)
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Waters
- A lake or river, not the ocean
- How certain
- Probable tsunami
- Source location
- 30.945° N, 110.795° E
The toll
- Deaths
- 10
- 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 #13571:
The Xintan landslide occurred north of Quyuan Town within Zigui County of Hubei Province, China, and was a typical accumulation landslide. On the morning of June 12, 1985, when Xintan landslide failed, about 3.0×107 m3 of rock-soil mass slipped into the Yangtze River at a maximum speed of 31 m/s, with a volume of rock-soil submerged in the river of about 2.60×106 m3.
Thanks to an alarm before failure, no casualties occurred among the total of 1371 residents from 457 households of Xintan Town within the landslide area. However, the rock-soil mass sliding into the Yangtze River caused impulse waves as high as 54 m, endangering about 42 km of the watercourse upstream and downstream and blocking the river. Navigation on the Yangtze River was interrupted for 12 days. The impulse waves destroyed 64 wooden vessels and 13 small motorized vessels and killed 10 crew members.
More
Every tsunami in 1985The 1900sTsunamis of ChinaThis 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 5917.