A microbend accelerometer comprising a housing having a housing base and a housing top, where housing base has corrugations that protrude from the surface of the housing and an internal mass assembly located between the housing top and the side of the housing base. The internal mass assembly features corrugations that are similar to the housing base corrugations. The microbend accelerometer also features a sensing fiber featuring light propagating therethrough, said sensing fiber disposed between said internal mass and said housing base, said sensing fiber being coupled on each end to at least one lead fiber. Upon an acceleration event along a predetermined axis, inertia causes the internal mass assembly to apply a force on the sensing fiber causing the sensing fiber to distort. This resulting distortion of the sensing fiber causes the intensity of the light propagating through the sensing fiber to modulate in proportion to the magnitude of said acceleration event. The light modulated in the sensing fiber propagates into the lead fiber couple thereto where the modulation is sensed by sensing means coupled to the lead fiber.