Resources for Covering Earthquakes and Tsunamis in Samoa, Indonesia

It has been an especially active week for powerful Pacific earthquakes. On Tuesday, an undersea earthquake caused a tsunami that struck the Samoa islands region, resulting in scores of deaths. Another earthquake hit Indonesia Wednesday morning, causing buildings to topple.

Here are a list of resources to help you better understand, and cover, these natural disasters:

• This running log shows the magnitude of the earthquake activity in the Somoa islands region.

• A fair number of citizen-generated photographs of the Samoa earthquake are rolling in.

• See a map of earthquakes that have struck in the last week.

• Here is a list of the biggest quakes so far this year.

• See a time line of tsunamis touched off by Pacific earthquakes.

• What exactly is a tsunami?

• “How Stuff Works” provides some useful information about how tsunamis work.

• The U.S. Geological Survey’s Web site lets you monitor quakes worldwide.

• Here are 200 earthquake terms and definitions, many of which are accompanied by illustrations.

• Take a look at “today in earthquake history.”

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, 455 people worldwide had died up until last week as a result of 2009 earthquakes.