The 7.9 magnitude earthquake that hit Hawaii on April 2, 1868, centered near the southern tip of the Big Island, was the largest to ever strike the island chain. The resulting landslide and tsunami killed 77 people. The account below is from History of the Hawaiian Islands (1872), by James Jackson Jarves. It has been shortened and edited.

At about 10 A. M., on [March] 28th, a series of earthquakes began, which continued at intervals with varied severity for over a month. At Kona, as many as fifty or sixty distinct shocks were felt in one day; at Kau, over three-hundred in the same time, and near the great crater of Kilauea the earth is represented as having been in a constant quiver for days together, with frequent vigorous shocks that would send crockery, chairs, lamps, &c., spinning around in not a very pleasant way.

One can readily imagine the state of nervous excitement produced by the continual swaying of the ground. A lady, who spent two weeks in this shaky region, says that she put her ear down to the earth during one of the ground- swells, and could distinctly hear the rushing and roaring of the lava waves beneath the surface, like the surging of waves in a storm. Residents of Kau state that over two thousand distinct shocks occurred there between the 28th of March and the 11th of April, averaging over one hundred and forty a day for two weeks.

The earthquakes continued to increase in severity from March 2Sth till April 2d, when, about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, one took place that shook down every stone wall, and nearly every stone, frame and thatch house throughout Kau, and did more or less damage in every part of Hawaii, while it was felt very sensibly on Maui, Molokai, Oahu and Kauai, the latter island being three hundred miles distant from the crater. Every church in Kau district was destroyed, with perhaps a single exception. The shock was so severe that it threw persons from their feet, and even horses and other animals were served in the same way. The effect of the shock was instantaneous. Before a person could think, he found himself prostrate on the ground. Judge F. S. Lyman describes this remarkable shock as follows: "Thursday, (April 2d,) between 4 and 5 P. M., we experienced the most fearful of earthquakes! First, the earth swayed to and fro north and south, then east and west, round and round, then up and down and in every imaginable direction for several minutes, everything crashing around us, the trees thrashing about as if torn by a mighty rushing wind. It was impossible to stand; we had to sit on the ground, bracing with hands and feet to keep from rolling over." It left nothing but desolation and ruin throughout the district.

Just at the instant the earthquake occurred the sides of the valley were rent, and from the fissure burst out, with a terrific noise, a stream of red mud and water, which was driven by the explosion fully three miles. This stream was ejected simultaneously with the heavy earthquake from both sides of the valley. Immediately under and near the fissures are heaps of stones and boulders, which were evidently thrown out first, and beyond these a vacant space, in which a native thatch-house was left standing and the inmates unharmed, while the mud and stones flew over and beyond them. Eighteen hundred feet from the opening the pile of mud commences, and extends a distance of three miles from the opening, varying in width from half a mile to one mile, and from two feet at the outer edges to twenty and thirty feet deep in the center. Where [the mud] crosses the road it is thirty feet deep and half a mile across.

As it swept through the valley, with the most indescribable and unearthly noises, it buried and destroyed men, animals and trees alike. Thirty-one lives were lost, and between five hundred and a thousand head of cattle, horses, goats and sheep.

Immediately following the above explosion and the earthquake, there occurred a tidal or earthquake wave, which caused great destruction of life and property along the southeast coast of Hawaii, from Keauhou to Kalae, the most southern point of the island. Judge Lyman, whose residence is six or eight miles from the sea, describes the first view of it as follows: "Someone pointed to the shore, and we ran to where we could see it. After the hard shaking had ceased, all along the sea-shore, from directly below us to Punaluu, about three or four miles, the sea was boiling furiously, all red, for about an eighth of a mile from the shore, and the shore was covered by the sea.”

Mr. Abm. Fornander, who passed through the district a day or two before the wave occurred, communicated the following to the 

“At Keauhou, the following results of the earthquake on Thursday have been reported. Mr. Stackpole, who had charge of the place, had been up to the Volcano House during the day and was returning in the afternoon. While descending the pali to Keauhou, the first shock occurred, precipitating an immense amount of earth, stones and boulders down the pali after him. Escaping these, he arrived on the plateau below the pali and looked in the direction of the village of Apua, but not a house was to be seen! He then rode down to the edge of the plateau, from whence Keauhou ought to have been in sight, but nothing of it could be seen. Descending [further], he met the men working at Keauhou running up mauka, who reported that nothing was left of Keauhou; that immediately after the earthquake the sea had rushed in and swept off every dwelling and storehouse, and all their contents, and that they had barely escaped with their lives. They represent that the sea went up as far as the two basaltic columns indicating the road down to Keauhou—a depth of wave of at least forty to fifty feet.

"At Punaluu, at the moment of the shock, it seemed as if an immense quantity of lava had been discharged into the sea some distance from the shore, for almost instantly a terrible commotion arose, the water boiling and tossing furiously. Shortly afterwards a tremendous wave was sweeping up on the shore, and when it receded there was nothing left of Punaluu! Every house, the big stone church, even the cocoa nut-trees—all but two— were washed away. The number of lives lost is not yet ascertained. All who were out fishing at the time perished, and many of those ashore. A big chasm opened, running from the sea up into the mountain, down which it is said lava, mud, trees, ferns, and rocks were rushing out into the sea.

"A large hole, sixty feet in diameter, had opened on the flat below Kahuku, with no bottom visible from the brink of it, and emitting quantities of sulphuric vapor.

“I have just been told an incident that occurred at Ninole, during the inundation at that place. At the time of the shock on Thursday, a man named Holoua, and his wife, ran out of the house and started for the hills above, but remembering the money he had in the house, the man left his wife and returned to bring it away. Just as he had entered the house the sea broke on the shore, and, enveloping the building, first washed it several yards inland, and then, as the wave receded, swept it off to sea, with him in it. Being a powerful man, and one of the most expert swimmers in that region, he succeeded in wrenching off a board or a rafter, and with this as a 

 (surf-board), he boldly struck out for the shore and landed safely with the return wave. When we consider the prodigious height of the breaker on which he rode to the shore, (fifty, perhaps sixty feet), the feat seems almost incredible, were it not that he is now alive to attest it, as well as the people on the hillside who saw him."

[Painting of Holoua and the tidal wave by C.P. Cathcart, 1948]

1868: TSUNAMI DESTROYS BIG ISLAND TOWNS, CREATES BIG-WAVE LEGEND

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