382 Tsunami: Cabo San Vicente, Portugal
A tsunami probably caused by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake began at Cabo San Vicente, Portugal in 382.
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
- 382
- Source
- Cabo San Vicente, Portugal
- Cause
- Questionable earthquake
- Earthquake
- Magnitude 7.5
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Questionable tsunami
- Source location
- 36.000° N, 10.830° W
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.
382 A.D. The earthquake was felt in the Iberian Peninsula. According to Brito (reference #9161) the works of the romans Ansiano Marcelino e Laymundo (not available in the Portughese Archives) report the flooding of several islands offshore Cape S.Vicente (SW Portugal). (reference #4139)
382 A.D. 36 deg N, 10 deg 50 min W, Portugal. (reference #2764)
382. Magnitude 7.5. 36 N, 9.5 W . Event reliability = 3 (probable tsunami). (reference #11164)
This earthquake is first listed by Moreira de Mendoza (1758) "This year there was an earthquake in the whole world. The sea shores of Portugal suffered a great deal. Some islands were submerged of which there is still some rests in front of Cape St. Vincent" (reference #12774)
382 A.D. 36 N, 9.5 W . Event reliability = 3 (probable tsunami). The 382AD tsunami is briefly described by Brito (1597)(ref#9161): “[. . . ] the rise of the sea subverted a part of the land and overtopped some islands [. . . ] of which some rocks remained in the middle of the sea, which can be seen close or inside the ocean, mainly in Cape St. Vincent [. . . ]”. The Martins and Victor (2001) catalog evaluates the magnitude of the corresponding earthquake as 7.5. (reference #4649)
If we accept Brito’s (1597)(ref#9161) description we can conclude that this event also surely affected Morocco. There are no local sources describing the event. (reference #8635)
Many subsequent authors have believed that 382 AD is the year to which Brito dates the earthquake (Moreira de Mendonça 1758, p. 26; Galbis 1932, p. 7; Oliveira 1986, p. 133; Baptista and Miranda 2009, p. 26), when in fact he does not mention any specific date for this event. (reference #13258)
More
Every tsunami in 382The 300sTsunamis of PortugalThe earthquakeAlerts 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 4273.