June 7, 1987 Tsunami: Sabtang Island, Philippines
A tsunami caused by a magnitude 6.1 earthquake began at Sabtang Island, Philippines on June 7, 1987 at 05:49:43 UTC.
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
- June 7, 1987, 05:49:43 UTC
- Source
- Sabtang Island, Philippines
- Cause
- Earthquake
- Earthquake
- Magnitude 6.1, 25 km deep
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Very doubtful tsunami
- Source location
- 20.429° N, 121.366° E
The toll
The record gives no deaths, injuries or damage for this tsunami.
What the record says
NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.
An article by Harper-Alonso (2002) in the Starweek magazine mentioned about a tsunami which occurred in the evening of June 1987 and swept through the barangay of Nakamuan in Batanes province. A barangay called Nakanmuan, not Nakamuan as mentioned in the Starweek article, is located in the island of Sabtang. A review of the earthquake catalogs showed that an earthquake indeed occurred on June 7, 1987 (Ms 6.1) whose epicenter was about 60 km west of Batanes island. A field verification made by Ms. Vilma C. Hernandez, PHIVOLCS Batanes field personnel, on July 1, 2002 at Barangay Nakanmuan however revealed that the villagers could not recall any tsunami on June 1987. What the villagers could recall was that of typhoon which occurred in September of that year and which battered the island for 36 hours (Vilma C. Hernandez, PHIVOLCS Batanes field personnel, personal communication, July 1, 2002). Due to the discrepancy of the earthquake date with the article report and the lack of confirmation by local residents, tsunami probability is ranked as “doubtful”. (reference #10958)
More
Every tsunami in 1987The 1900sTsunamis of PhilippinesThe 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 2026-10-01. NCEI tsunami event 5999.