Certain facts in this story are out of date; it originally ran Friday.
While many in the Northern Hemisphere welcomed the equinox and the arrival of autumn, recent weeks have arrived with an unusual cluster of natural events around the world. These events coincide with unusual Aries Point activity, astrology that has a way of rippling into the lives of many people.
Wednesday night, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the sixth largest island in the world. According to published reports, by Thursday night it was known that more than 1,2000 people had been killed in the city of Padang and nearby areas, which were just 30 miles from the epicenter. Sumatra was the scene of the infamous 2004 earthquake, which had an epicenter 155 miles off the coast of Banda Aceh, on the northern end of the island. An estimated 130,000 people were killed in the 2004 magnitude 9.2 quake and subsequent tsunamis.
One day before the Sumatra quake, another earthquake in the South Pacific sent tsunami waves crashing into the Samoas. Thursday that the tally of the dead had risen to at least 160 and property damage was widespread, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The magnitude 8.0 quake struck off Samoa at 6:48 a.m. local time (1:48 p.m. EDT; 17:48 GMT) Tuesday. The islands soon were engulfed by four tsunami waves 15 to 20 feet (4 to 6 meters) high that reached up to a mile (1.5 kilometers) inland.
The Samoas lie about halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii, ust east of the international date line. Some of the islands are an unincorporated American territory.