As most of you know, an earthquake struck Japan early friday morning. The earthquake registered an 8.9 on the Richter scale and triggered a massive tsunami, which devastated Japan and most of the countries in the Pacific. The death toll is expected to exceed 10,000. Survivors are living in temporary shelters while the food supply dwindles.

Thoughts and prayers are always appreciated, but there are some more concrete things you can do to help the people of the Pacific. There was a great blog post on Huffington Post about various groups and their relief efforts. Instead of regurgitating the post here, I’m going link to it.

The earthquake and tsunami come on the heels of the earthquake in New Zealand last month. Of course, many people are still donating money to Haiti and to the gulf after the oil spill. Last August I wrote a post about the flooding in Pakistan and why relief was sluggish. One of the issues brought up was that major relief groups are only equipped for one natural disaster a year.

So as the devastating pictures keep coming in and the bad news piles up, please don’t forget that there are things you can do to help the people in the Pacific.