Determining the potential effects of an earthquake that's just occurred

So you're a member of the media, a large earthquake has just occurred in the past few minutes near a populated area and you want to quickly find information about the potential damage/casualties. Here are some ways you can go about this:

Using Google Earth, turn on the earthquake layer (under 'gallery'). You can then can zoom in and see past earthquakes in the same area (it may also be useful to add the Real Time earthquakes KML so you can see the location of the recent earthquake). If you find a past earthquake of similar magnitude in the same area, remember the date, then go to Significant Earthquakes of the World and click on the year in which the quake occurred. If it was above M6.5, or caused injuries or damage then it will be on this list.

eg. On November 08 2009 a M6.6 earthquake hit the Sumbawa region of Indonesia. Two earthquakes of M6.5 hit the same area on November 25 2007 killing 3 people and injuring hundreds. I expected that there would be a similar amount of casualties from the recent earthquake, and in the end one person was killed and at least 80 were injured.

Of course there is no guarantee that an earthquake will have similar effects to a previous quake in the same area, but it will give you a general idea of what to expect.

The USGS pager map is published within 30 minutes for all earthquakes above M5.5, and estimates the number of people and names of cities that may have been exposed to strong shaking.

Searching Twitter with the word 'earthquake' immediately after the occurrence of a large earthquake will give live updates of information about the effects, and updates of any casualties, damage or Tsunami warnings.

Remember that the depth (or focus) of an earthquake is a very important factor in how it will be felt at the surface. A large earthquake with a very shallow focus of 30km or less can be very destructive, however a deep focus earthquake with a depth of over 300km might be barely felt.