The 991 Damascus earthquake took place in the city of

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

on 5 April, 991 (17th

Muharram Al-Muharram () is the first month of the Islamic calendar. It is one of the four sacred months of the year when warfare is banned. It precedes the month of Safar. The tenth of Muharram is known as Ashura, an important day of commemoration in ...

Hijri year The Hijri year () or era () is the era used in the Islamic lunar calendar. It begins its count from the Islamic New Year in which Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Yathrib (now Medina) in 622 CE. This event, known as the Hij ...

381).Antonopoulos, 1980 According to historian George Elmacin (13th century), the earthquake caused the fall of 1000 houses in Damascus itself, and many people were trapped in their

ruins Ruins () are the remains of a civilization's architecture. The term refers to formerly intact structures that have fallen into a state of partial or total disrepair over time due to a variety of factors, such as lack of maintenance, deliberate ...

and died. The village of Beglabec was reportedly engulfed due to the earthquake. According to Elmacin,

aftershock In seismology, an aftershock is a smaller earthquake that follows a larger earthquake, in Epicenter, the same area of the Mainshock, main shock, caused as the displaced Crust (geology), crust adjusts to the effects of the main shock. Large earthq ...

s continued until 3 May, 991 (14th

Safar Safar (), also spelt as Safer in Turkish, is the second month of the lunar Islamic calendar. Most of the Islamic months were named according to ancient Sabean/Sabaic weather conditions; however, since the calendar is lunar, the months shift ...

381). The

geophysicist Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct investigations acros ...

August Heinrich Sieberg (20th century) estimated that this earthquake caused a "seismic sea wave" (

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

) which

flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

ed the coasts of the

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

. Sieberg did not name a primary source for his estimation. The historians Pierre Vattier(17th century) and Marcello Bonito (17th century) mention the earthquake, but not the tsunami.

Sources

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References

991 10th-century earthquakes 990s in the Fatimid Caliphate Earthquakes in Syria Medieval Damascus Tsunamis in Syria {{Asia-earthquake-stub