March 6, 1986 Tsunami: Caspian Sea, Turkmenistan
A tsunami of unknown cause began at Caspian Sea, Turkmenistan on March 6, 1986 at 00:05:38 UTC. The water rose as high as 0.03 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
- March 6, 1986, 00:05:38 UTC
- Source
- Caspian Sea, Turkmenistan
- Earthquake
- Magnitude 6.3, 33 km deep
- Maximum water height
- 0.03 m (0.1 ft)
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Very doubtful tsunami
- Source location
- 40.368° N, 51.555° E
The toll
- Damage
- Limited (under about $1 million) 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.
Livanov Shoal. Unusual high-frequency sea level oscillations of 2-3 cm amplitude were observed over epicenter of earthquake during 1-1.5 minutes. The event was fixed from the seiner and 45 fishing ships. (reference #14162)
More
Every tsunami in 1986The 1900sTsunamis of TurkmenistanThe 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 6054.