January 25, 2016 Tsunami: Morocco
A tsunami caused by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake began at Morocco on January 25, 2016 at 04:22:02 UTC. The water rose as high as 0.02 meters. Its effects were recorded at 2 places. It killed 1 person, counting the earthquake or eruption that caused it.
Where the waves reached
The source (white) and every runup with a place, colored by the water height recorded there. A ring is a runup NCEI marks doubtful.
- 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
- January 25, 2016, 04:22:02 UTC
- Source
- Morocco
- Cause
- Earthquake
- Earthquake
- Magnitude 6.3, 12 km deep
- Maximum water height
- 0.02 m (0.1 ft)
- Runups recorded
- 2
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Definite tsunami
- Source location
- 35.649° N, 3.682° W
The toll
- Deaths
- 1 with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Injuries
- 26 with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Damage
- Limited (under about $1 million) with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Houses destroyed
- Few (about 1 to 50) with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
- Houses damaged
- Few (about 1 to 50) 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.
A tsunami of very low amplitude was observed on the tide-gauge data available in real time at the CENALT. Recordings of the Spanish radar sensors (sampling step: 1 min) were downloaded from the Web site of the IOC (www.ioc-sealevelmonitoring.org) and then treated for several Spanish stations. The filtered signal (red curve, middle spectrogram), for the stations of Motril and Malaga on the Spanish coast, yields maximum peak-to-trough amplitudes of 3 to 4 cm. The spectrograms show that this phenomenon is associated with a period of approximately 10 min (Motril) or 20-30 min (Malaga). The station of Melilla (MELI), located on the edge of the Moroccan margin, does not show a tsunami signal. (reference #12977)
Every runup
Nearest the source first. Heights are above sea level at the time; a tide gauge reads half the wave’s full height.
| Where | Country | Km from source | Water height, m | Inland, m | Measured by | First wave, UTC | Deaths |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Motril | Spain | 120 | 0.02 | Tide gauge (half the maximum wave height) | |||
| Malaga | Spain | 135 | 0.02 | Tide gauge (half the maximum wave height) |
More
Every tsunami in 2016The 2000sTsunamis of MoroccoThe 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 5792.