July 9, 551 Tsunami: Levantian Sea, Turkey

Name: July 9, 551 Tsunami: Levantian Sea, Turkey
Start: 0551-07-09
Location: Levantian Sea, Turkey

July 9, 551 · Deaths: very many · Definite tsunami

A tsunami caused by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake began at Levantian Sea, Turkey on July 9, 551. Its effects were recorded at 1 place.

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

Tsunami warnings in force

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: July 9, 551
Source: Levantian Sea, Turkey
Cause: Earthquake
Earthquake: Magnitude 7.8
Runups recorded: 1
Tsunami intensity (Soloviev-Imamura): 3
Waters: Ocean
How certain: Definite tsunami
Source location: 40.800° N, 29.900° E

The toll

Deaths: Very many (over 1,000) with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
Damage: Limited (under about $1 million); Extreme (about $25 million or more) 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.

Reference #2130:

551, July 9. Levantian Sea, Near East. A tsunami occurred in Botys near Jubeil (Byblos), Beirut, Tripolis (Tarabulus esh Sham). It started with the sea retreating by 1 km. Tidal waves destroyed many houses. It may be possible that this and the preceding description [551 July 7] are related to the same event.

Reference #12645:

On the other hand, it was mentioned that at the time of the earthquake the sea retired for a mile then returned drowning many ships [John Malalas]. More details about this phenomenon in Beirut are supplied by John of Ephesus. He says: "before the earthquake happened, the sea retired roughly two miles, then the people were rushed in the seabed to find wealth at the sunken ships, then an immense wave returned, flooding the shore and drowning ships as well as the people who' were in the seabed and along the coast". Although this last detailed description is somewhat strange and it is difficult to verify its reality, obviously the earthquake was associated with a tsunami.

Reference #9116:

Damage extended along 100 km of the littoral of Galilee and Phoenice Maritima, where towns and villages on the coast were ruined by two successive earthquakes and the seismic sea wave that followed the first quake.

Beirut seems to have been the worst hit. It was badly damaged by the earthquake and a sea wave, but most of the destruction seems to have resulted from the ensuing fire, which apparently raged for two months

The earthquake was associated with a destructive seismic sea wave. It is said that 30000 ( sic .) people were drowned by the sea wave, since, once the sea had retreated, they had gone down to the sea bed to plunder sunken wrecks, a grossly exaggerated figure given for Beirut alone (Ant. Plac. 159-160).

Note: the deaths may not be certain, as noted by reference #12645

Along the coast of Phoenice the sea receded for many hours by one to two miles ( sic .), stranding sailing boats in the shallows. Then the sea came back, throwing ships on land, causing great havoc before returning to its original level. A contemporary source (John Eph. NA. 489, 491) notes that the main earthquake was preceded by a shock that was responsible for setting off the seismic sea wave and that the main earthquake occurred after the sea had flooded the coast. Barring a degree of poetic licence, this statement implies two shocks within an hour.

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
Levantian Sea	Turkey				Eyewitness observation of water height

Every tsunami in 551 The 500s Tsunamis of Turkey The earthquake This day in weather history Alerts 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 47.