List of tsunamis in Europe

The following is a list of notable tsunamis in Europe.

Causes

Most of the tsunamis that have occurred within Europe have happened in the Mediterranean Sea because in the Mediterranean Sea there are earthquakes, submarine landslide and volcanoes. Most of the earthquakes occur on the Eurasian Plate but earthquakes and submarine landslide also occur in western Europe like France, Norway and the United Kingdom which have been struck by tsunamis.

Tsunamis

Date	Country	Dead	Cause	Notes
~6225-6170 BC	Scotland, United Kingdom	Unknown	Underwater elmoslide	Storegga Slide, Norway[1]
6000 BC	Sicily, Italy	Unknown	Volcanic eruption
3500 BC	Northern Isles	Many	Tsunami	Unclear[2]
1410 BC	Santorini, Greece	Unknown	Volcanic eruption	[3]
426 BC	Gulf of Euboea, Greece	Unknown	Earthquake	426 BC Malian Gulf tsunami[3]
373 BC	Helike, Greece	Unknown	Earthquake	An earthquake and a tsunami destroyed the prosperous Greek city Helike, lying 2 km away from the sea. The fate of the city, which remained permanently submerged, was often commented upon by ancient writers and may have inspired Plato when writing his story of Atlantis in Timaeus and Critias.[3]
227 BC	Dodecanese, Greece	Unknown	Earthquake	226 BC Rhodes earthquake[3]
210 BC	Gulf of Cadiz, Portugal	Unknown	Earthquake	[4]
79 AD	Gulf of Naples, Italy	Unknown	Volcanic eruption	A smaller tsunami was witnessed in the Bay of Naples by Pliny the Younger during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.[5]
21 July 365	Crete, Greece	Thousands	8.0 earthquake	365 Crete earthquake[3]
7 July 551	Menidi, Aetolia-Acarnania, Greece	Unknown	Earthquake	[3]
15 August 554	Kos, Greece	Unknown	Earthquake	[3]
24 October 842	Channel Islands United Kingdom	Unknown	Earthquake	[6]
1050	Santorini, Greece	Unknown	Volcanic eruption	[3]
11 November 1099	Cornwall, United Kingdom,	Unknown	Unknown	[6]
1 October 1134	North Sea, United Kingdom, Netherlands	Unknown	Unknown	[7]
4 February 1169	Strait of Messina, Italy,	Unknown	Earthquake	[5]
11 May 1222	Cyprus	Unknown	Earthquake	[3]
8 August 1303	Crete, Greece	Thousands	8.0 earthquake	1303 Crete earthquake[3]
25 November 1343	Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy	Loss of lives recorded unknown number.	Earthquake	[5]
5 December 1456	Province of Benevento, Italy	30,000–70,000	Earthquake	[5] Largest earthquake to strike Italy.
3 May 1481	Rhodes, Greece	Unknown	Earthquake	[3]
6 April 1580	Strait of Dover, United Kingdom	120	Earthquake/Underwater landslide	The 5.9 earthquake caused freak waves in the Strait of Dover which were observed in England and France.[6]
30 January 1607	Bristol Channel, United Kingdom	2,000	disputed tsunami caused by earthquake off Ireland
27 March 1638	Sicily, Italy	9,581–30,000	Earthquake	[5]
6 April 1667	Adriatic Sea, Croatia	Unknown	Earthquake	The tsunami struck the city of Dubrovnik.[8]
9 October 1680	Alboran Sea, Spain	Unknown	Unknown	[9]
11 January 1693	Italy	1000	Earthquake	[5]
1693	Iceland	Unknown	Volcanic earthquake	[10]
21 February 1723	Lefkada, Greece	Unknown	Earthquake	[3]
20 February 1743	Apulia, Italy	180–300	Earthquake	[5]
14 May 1748	Gulf of Patras, Greece	Unknown	Earthquake	[3]
7 July 1757	Isles of Scilly, United Kingdom	Unknown	Earthquake	[6]
21 January 1760	Baltic Sea, Denmark, Germany	Unknown	Underwater landslide	[11]
5 September 1767	Dublin Republic of Ireland	Unknown	Unknown	[12]
February 5, February 6, February 7, March 1, March 28, 1783	Calabria, Italy	50,000	Earthquakes	[5]
1 November 1755	Lisbon, Portugal	10,000	Earthquake	[13]
31 March 1761	Lisbon, Portugal	Unknown	Earthquake	Moderate tsunami observed in Cornwall and Barbados.
18 September 1763	Weymouth, Dorset, United Kingdom	Unknown	Unknown	[6]
2 April 1808	Coast, Italy	Unknown	Earthquake	An earthquake in Italy caused a possible tsunami that was observed in Marseille, France.[5][14]
23 August 1817	Gulf of Corinth, Greece	Unknown	Earthquake	[3]
29 December 1820	Zakynthos, Greece	Unknown	Earthquake	[3]
5 July 1843	Cornwall, United Kingdom	Unknown	Unknown	[6]
12 October 1856	Crete, Greece	Unknown	Earthquake	[3]
19 September 1867	Ionian Sea Greece	12	Earthquake	[3]
3 April 1881	Chios, Greece	7,866	Earthquake	[3]
27 August 1886	Ionian Sea, Greece	Unknown	Earthquake	[3]
23 February 1887	Ligurian Sea, France	Unknown	Earthquake	[5][14]
14 June 1893	Adriatic Sea, Albania	Unknown	7.5 earthquake	[15]
31 March 1901	Black Sea, Bulgaria	0	7.2 earthquake	[16]
16 January 1905	Loen, Norway	61	Landslide	[17]
8 September 1905	Calabria, Italy	557	Earthquake	[5]
28 December 1908	Messina, Italy	200,000	7.2 earthquake	[5]
11 September 1930	Italy	2	Earthquake	[5]
26 September 1932	Ierissos, Greece	491	Earthquake	1932 Ierissos earthquake[3]
7 April 1934	Tafjord Norway	40	Landslide	[17]
13 September 1936	Loen, Norway	74	Landslide	[17]
September 10 1953	Paphos, Cyprus	40	Earthquake
9 July 1956	Aegean Islands Greece	3	Earthquake	[3]
9 July 1956	Dodecanese Greece	56	Earthquake	[3]
9 October 1963	Monte Toc, Italy	1,450	Landslide
28 February 1969	Portugal	0	Earthquake	[13]
21 June 1978	Vela Luka, Croatia	0	Meteorologic	[18]
16 October 1979	Nice, France	8-23	Landslide and underwater landslide	[19]
1 January 1980	Azores, Portugal	0	Earthquake	[13]
13 December 1990	Italy	6	Earthquake	[5]
30 December 2002	Stromboli, Italy	0	Landslide	[5]
21 May 2003	Balearic islands, Spain	0	Earthquake	The earthquake was off the coast of Algeria.[20][21]
29 June 2011	Cornwall, United Kingdom	0	Underwater landslide	[6][22][23][24]
30 October 2020	Aegean Islands, Greece	1	Earthquake	A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Turkey, producing a 2.2 meter-high tsunami that would later strike the coast of Turkey, and the Aegean Islands, including Ikaria, Kos, Chios, and Samos.[25][20]

See also

• Tsunamis in the United Kingdom
• Historic tsunamis

References