In 2008, Block was recording an interview in Chengdu, China, when the area was struck by a 7.9 magnitude earthquake. Her earthquake coverage earned her a Peabody Award, a duPont-Columbia Award, a National Headliner Award, and the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi Award. Her coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks earned NPR a George Foster Peabody Award. Also, her reporting from Kosovo in 1999 for NPR won an Overseas Press Club Award.