June 13, 2008 Tsunami: Aratozawa, Japan
A tsunami caused by a magnitude 6.9 earthquake and a landslide began at Aratozawa, Japan on June 13, 2008 at 23:43:45 UTC. The water rose as high as 2.5 meters. It killed 23 people, counting the earthquake or eruption that caused it.
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 13, 2008, 23:43:45 UTC
- Source
- Aratozawa, Japan
- Cause
- Earthquake and landslide
- Earthquake
- Magnitude 6.9, 8 km deep
- Maximum water height
- 2.5 m (8.2 ft)
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Waters
- A lake or river, not the ocean
- How certain
- Definite tsunami
- Source location
- 39.030° N, 140.881° E
The toll
- Deaths
- 23 with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Injuries
- 357 with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Damage
- Severe (about $5 to $25 million) with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Houses damaged
- 614 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.
The moving landslide body, with a volume of 1.55 million m3, partially flowed into the reservoir, the water level rose 2.42 m, and a tsunami with about 2.5-m high waves was generated. According to witnesses, part of the generated tsunami over flowed the spillway on the right bank of the dam. Moreover, the tsunami continued up the small river flowing into the reservoir at the right bank side and moved a bridge girder by about 80 m toward the up streamside. However, the damage to the Aratosawa Dam, a rock fill dam of a central core type, 74.4 m in height, due to the earthquake by the shaking was small; only about 20cm of subsidence occurred in the rock-fill part. (reference #13604)
More
Every tsunami in 2008The 2000sTsunamis of JapanThe 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 5888.