50 BC Tsunami: Black Sea, Bulgaria
A tsunami caused by an earthquake began at Black Sea, Bulgaria in 50 BC.
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
- 50 BC
- Source
- Black Sea, Bulgaria
- Cause
- Earthquake
- Earthquake
- The earthquake
- Runups recorded
- 0
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Questionable tsunami
- Source location
- 43.500° N, 28.500° E
The toll
- Damage
- Moderate (about $1 to $5 million)
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.
50 B.C. Earthquake 43 deg 30 min N 28 deg 30 min E. Flooding of Kavarna and Balchik. (reference #4139)
The towns of Bisone (today Kavarna) and Dionisopolis (today Balchik) destroyed by earthquakes, landslides and flooding, according to Strabo quoted by Ranguelov. (reference #9156)
Reference #11164, v2 lists as improbable tsunami
there is not any tsunami record [at Sveshtari, NE Bulgaria]. there is no tsunami record in Bizone. We concluded that the strong earthquake which is evident through historical, archaeological and geomorphological evidence, was possibly the one that caused landslides and a local tsunami in Bizone probably during the 1st century BC. However, the little information available is not sufficient to estimate tsunami intensity […] tsunami evidence is provided by sediment deposits found to the north of Varna at 43 180 N/28 180 E. The deposits were radiocarbon dated at about 2000 years BP and attributed to a large magnitude (M > 7.0) earthquake (Ranguelov, 2003). However, the dating result is unstable and susceptible to large error. Levelling measurements indicated a wave run-up of 7–8 m. Listed as probable tsunami. (reference #9391)
More
Every tsunami in 50 BC99 to 1 BCTsunamis of BulgariaThe 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 3794.