Several medieval traditions describe a destructive earthquake in the Levant that caused structural damage and produced a tsunami at Akko accompanied by a dramatic withdrawal of the sea and a sudden return of the waters. Although written in different languages and places, these accounts appear to refer to the same event, with the tsunami reported at the port of Akko (ancient Ptolemais), even though the earthquake itself was not centered there.

One of the most vivid descriptions comes from Michael, Bishop of Tinnis, who reports that a large part of the sea dried up, exposing the seabed where people gathered fish and discovered metals such as lead and iron before the sea returned to its former level. Although Michael does not explicitly identify the coastal location of this phenomenon, the description of the sea withdrawing and then returning closely resembles other traditions that clearly situate the event at Akko. The similarity strongly suggests that Michael was describing the same tsunami that affected the port of Akko.

A more geographically specific account appears in the chronicle of Yahya of Antioch, who records that houses collapsed at Akko and that there were many casualties. He also reports a striking marine anomaly: the sea water receded from the port for about an hour before returning to its place. This description corresponds closely to the behavior of a tsunami, where the sea commonly withdraws from the shoreline prior to the arrival of the returning wave.

A similar account survives in a Greek manuscript tradition, the Analecta Ierosolymitikis Stachiologias, which reports that Akko became "tombs for many of their inhabitants" and that the sea withdrew from the city for the same period of one hour before returning. The close agreement with the account of Yahya of Antioch suggests that these two sources preserve related narrative traditions describing the same coastal disaster.

A later Syriac historian, Bar Hebraeus, records the event in a broad regional context. He reports that half of the city of Akko was destroyed. He also preserves a detailed description of the tsunami: the sea retreated three parasangs, allowing people to enter the exposed seabed to gather fish and shellfish, but when the waters returned some of them were drowned.